I 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Siielf- Gi%fc 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



« M f r\ loor. 



QEONOMY: 



CREATION OF THE CONTINENTS 



BY 



THE OOEAE" OUEEEETS. 



AN 



ADVANCED SYSTEM OF PHYSICAL GEOLOGY 
AND GEOGRAPHY. 



" The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." — Genesis. 



BY y- 



' -I 



J. STANLEY GRIMES, 

ATJTHOE OF " PEOBLEMS OF CREATION'' ANd'mYSTEKIES OF THE HEAD AND HEAET." 

PHILADELPHIA: '^''^^..-Z^I*-'''^ 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 

1885. 






Copyright, 1885, by J. Stanley Grimes. 



PRINTED AND STEREOTYPED BT 

I. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.. 

PHILADELPHIA. 



eitrcHlion. 



TO THE 

FELLOWS AND MEMBERS 

OF 

THE BRITISH AND THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATIONS 

FOB 

THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, 

THESE PAGES 

ARE RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THEIR FELLOW-STUDENT 
OF NATURE, 

THE AUTHOR. 



00]SrTES"TS. 









PAQB 


Introdtjctiou . . . . . . . . .7 


Synopsis 






23 


Section I. — Preliminary and Historical 






25 


" II. — The General Ocean Currents 






37 


«« III.— The Elliptical Currents 






52 


" IV. — Effects of Oceanic Eesistance 






57 


" V. — Lack of Symmetry 






60 


" VI. — Local and Counter-Currents 






63 


'« VII. — Limits of the Ellipses 






68 


" VIII. — Extension of the Continents 






71 


" IX. — Loxodromic Trends . 






76 


" X.— The Sediment . 






79 


«' XI.— The Northern Glacial Epoch 






86 


'« XII.— The Southern Glacial Epoch 






92 


" XIII. — The Mountain Upheavals . 






97 


" XIV.— The North Indian Ocean . 






105 


" XV. — Concluding Eeview . 






112 



1* 



II^TRODTJOTI.OK 

BT EEV. W. E. OOOVEET. 



I EEGARD it not only as a pleasure but a privilege to 
write this introduction. Like all others who have en- 
joyed a long and intimate acquaintance with the author, 
I have always had the greatest respect for his character 
and admiration for his abilities. But I do not propose 
to avail myself of this opportunity to eulogize him per- 
sonally : his merits are best illustrated by his works, and 
I am aware that he desires no undeserved compliments. 
One of his most distinguishing traits is his intellectual 
independence. 

I take especial interest in this work for the reason 
that it was written in compliance with my urgent re- 
quest. I had long known that the author entertained 
peculiar views concerning the origin of continents, but 
my professional avocations prevented me from giving 
special attention to the subject; besides, I must confess 
that, notwithstanding my high opinion of his abilities, I 
supposed that his novel ideas were only ingenious specu- 
lations. When, therefore, he came to Pittsburgh, and 
lectured before the Teachers' Academy, he not only .con- 
vinced me that he had made a discovery which would 

7 



8 INTEODUCTION. 

produce a revolution in geology and physical geography, 
but I found, upon inquiry, that he had made a similar 
impression upon the minds of all his most competent 
hearers, not only in Pittsburgh, but in Grove City and 
Waynesburg, and several other colleges. Under these 
circumstances, they very naturally inquired for a book 
containing an account of the new " Geonomy ;" and I 
was surprised to learn that all the books relating to the 
subject were out of print, excepting the " Problems of 
Creation," and that only contained a synopsis comprised 
in a few pages, the greater part of the book being de- 
voted to other topics. When I afterwards urged my 
friend to prepare a more detailed account of his system, 
and took the liberty to intimate that he did not seem to 
appreciate the value of his own discoveries, I received 
the followiug characteristic reply, which, as it justifies 
my writing this introduction, I shall take the liberty to 
insert : 

" Chicago, Nov. 1, 1884. 

" Eev. "W. R. Coovert. 

" Deae Sir, — In answer to your last note, I will say 
that, in compliance with your suggestions, I have begun 
to prepare a small treatise on Geonomy, which, I hope, 
will meet your expectations. I will send you the manu- 
script as soon as it is finished, and, as you seem to ap- 
prehend that I shall leave out some things that I ought 
to insert, I will request you to add such notes as you 
may think necessary, and also to write an apj)ropriate 
introduction ; with the proviso, however, that you do not 
allow your partiality to make any unnecessary allusions 



LNTEODUCTIOIS". 9 

to me personally. You remark that I ' appear to un- 
dervalue the importance of my own work.' You are 
greatly mistaken. I have not the slightest doubt that 
the time will come when the elliptical theory of Geonomy 
will be taught in all the higher schools of the civilized ^ 
world. ' 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished/ 
but I shall not live to witness it. The history of scien- 
tific advances is instructive on this subject. The dis- 
covery of Copernicus was treated with contempt by Lord 
Bacon, the greatest philosopher in the world, fifty years 
after Copernicus died. That ' history repeats itself is as 
true now as ever. The soldier who ventures too far in 
advance of his fellows is not only in danger from the 
enemy, but he will be very likely to be shot in the back 
by some of those whose support he had a right to expect. 
Do not understand me as complaining. The follower of 
science, like an enthusiastic hunter, finds his greatest re- 
ward in the pleasure of the pursuit. We have the author- 
ity of the ' Encyclopasdia Britannica' for the statement 
that '■ the universities of Europe were often the fastnesses 
from which prejudice and error were the latest in being 
expelled. For more than thirty years after the publica- 
tion of the discoveries of Newton, the system of Descartes 
kept its ground in the British universities.' The princi- 
ples of Newton were at length smuggled in by a strata- 
gem; they were introduced, without authority, in the 
form of notes to a new edition of the old erroneous text- 
book. 

" Sir Charles Lyell says, ' We are sometimes tempted 
to ask whether the time will ever come when science 



10 INTEODUCTION. 

shall have attained such an ascendency in the education 
of the millions, that it will be possible to welcome new 
truths, instead of always looking upon them with fear 
and disquiet ; and to hail every important victory gained 
over error, instead of resisting new discoveries long after 
the evidence in their favor is conclusive.' 

" Yours respectfully, 

"J. Stanley Grimes." 

This treatise is especially devoted to the elliptical 
theory of the origin of continents ; but the reader must 
not suppose that the author has labored successfully in 
no other departments of science. He has made impor- 
tant advances in mental physiology and in astronomy ; 
and, disconnected as these topics may at first seem, his in- 
vestigations have tended to bring them within the sphere 
of his one great theme, — creation by theistic evolution. 

His first publication was made in 1838. In that work 
he demonstrated that the functions of the brain as well 
as of the body include three classes : those that relate to 
self, those that relate to society, and those that relate to 
knowledge. Each of the three classes of mental organs 
may be said to have its roots in a class of analogous 
bodily organs, and from thence, like the trunks of three 
trees, they extend up into the brain, where they expand 
and send off special branches. 

In that work the author did not, directly and pro- 
fessedly, advocate evolution ; he merely pointed out the 
fact that the cerebral organs are arranged in a certain 
progressive order, which would now be at once recog- 



INTEODUCTION. 11 

nized as the result of evolution. But in 1850, eight 
years prior to the publication of Darwin's first work on 
evolution, he published a volume which was more Dar- 
winian than Darwin himself, excepting that it was de- 
cidedly and avowedly theistic; indeed, it was the first 
book ever published on purpose to advocate theistio evo- 
lution. On the title-page he placed the following sen- 
tence : " Circumstances are the fingers of God, by the 
agency of which he created and controls all things." 

The theory advocated in that work is that all the 
higher species of plants and animals are derived from 
the lower, and that all the changes that occurred in or- 
ganized beings were caused by changes in the condition 
of the earth during the successive geological ages. 

The book was received in New England with the 
greatest disfavor by all parties. Its author stood alone 
— the solitary advocate of creation by theistic evolu- 
tion — in this country if not in the world. The infidels 
denounced it, in the " Boston Investigator," on account 
of its recognition of a personal Creator, and its implied 
admission of the truth of Christianity; the Puritans 
condemned it for the reason that it was opposed to the 
literal interpretation of the book of Genesis. Dr. Jar- 
vis, the historiographer of the Episcopal Church, in a 
letter to the author's pastor, the Rev. Orange Clark, ex- 
pressed the general opinion by declaring that " A man 
who could seriously advocate the theory that the human 
brain was gradually created by receiving successive ad- 
ditions during the geological ages, was a fit candidate for 
a mad-house." 



12 INTEODUCTION. 

This was thirty-four years ago. If the learned his^ 
toriographer could have lived to the present time, he 
would have been much more astonished to find theistic 
evolution defended by some of our most eminent divines, 
including Dr. McCosh, the president of Princeton Col- 
lege, and the Rev. Joseph Cook, of Boston. The truth 
is that the book was then, at least in New England, far 
in advance of "the times. It has lately been reissued 
under the title of " Problems of Creation," by Henry 
A. Sumner & Co., Chicago. 

The author's long-continued and thorough investiga- 
tion of Mental Physiology proved to be of great service 
to him, as well as to the public, when Mesmerism and 
Modern Spiritism were agitating the country. The phe- 
nomena of Mesmerism, in various forms, have been ob- 
served in every age and almost every community, and 
have been attributed to witchcraft, to imagination, to 
magnetism, to electricity, and to the inspiration of good 
and of evil spirits. Some physiologists have supposed 
that the trance may be induced by the long-continued 
concentration of the subject's mind, others that it results 
from " expectant attention," and still others that it may 
be induced by gazing upon a bright object; the most 
prevalent theory has been that the will of the operator 
subdued and controlled the mind of the subject. 

In 1876 our author published his " Mysteries of the 
Head and Heart explained," in which, for the first time, 
a really reliable and scientific explanation of the facts 
was given. He demonstrated that all the phenomena 
are produced by the abnormal excitement and dominance 



INTEODUCTION. 13 

of a particular group of mental organs, which he denom- 
inated " the conforming group." It may be confidently 
asserted that this book contains the only true system of 
Mental Pliysiology ever published,— the only one that 
furnishes a rational explanation of the influences of the 
body and the mind upon each other. The late Dr. 
Geo. M. Beard, one of the most distinguished physicians 
of New York, in a lecture before a large audience, with 
his usual generosity and frankness, said, "All that we 
really know of the physiology of mesmerism and spirit- 
ism we have learned from J. Stanley Grimes." Hun- 
dreds of physicians and others have made the same 
declaration. I can speak on this subject from personal 
experience. After having read everything that I could 
find in the books relating to mesmerism, religious trance, 
spiritism, and prayer-cures, I find my friend's theory to 
be the only one that will bear a rigid scrutiny, or stand 
the test of carefully-conducted experiments. When we 
read the explanations of other writers — metaphysical or 
medical — we find ourselves treated to conjectures, asser- 
tions, and assumptions ; but he confines himself strictly 
to the principles of physiology, and to facts that can 
readily be verified. 

I can only allude briefly to our author's advances in 
Physical Astronomy, and, for further details, refer to 
his "Problems of Creation." His theory concerning 
the origin of the sun and planets is much more con- 
sistent with the facts than is the " Nebular Hypothesis" 
of Laplace. He assumes that the nebula became sepa- 
rated into a sun and a revolving disk ; and that the dif- 

2 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

ferences of orbital velocities, in the different parts of the 
disk, produced a separation into a series of concentric 
rings, which would necessarily be wider with distance 
from the centre, in proportion as the orbital velocities 
decreased. When the rings became concentrated into 
globes, their intervals, also, of course, increased with 
their distances. Astronomers have never been able to 
account for the well-known fact that the intervals in- 
crease; but here we have a perfectly satisfactory reason. 
Had the disk been of uniform thickness, the magnitudes 
of the planets would also have increased with distance ; 
but a glance at a diagram representing their actual rela- 
tive magnitudes informs us that the disk must have 
been very irregular in thickness j and this fact accounts 
for the irregularities, not only of the magnitudes, but 
also of the intervals. 

It is not easy to decide which of the discoveries made 
by our author is of the most value ; but the probability 
is that the one to which this book is especially devoted 
will ultimately occupy the highest place in the history 
of science. When I assert that the discovery of the 
laws of the elliptical currents, and their agency in the 
creation of the continents, bears the same relation to 
geology that Newton's discovery bears to astronomy, I 
merely state a fact that every candid and capable reader 
of this book will be forced to admit. Geology is usually 
termed " a science," and it is one in the same sense that 
astronomy was a science previous to the discovery of the 
law of gravitation. Before that time it was known that 
there were several planets which revolved around the sun, 



INTEODUCTIOlSr. 15 

that they moved in elliptical orbits, and that their periods 
and distances were mathematically proportional ; but the 
reason and the causal connection of these facts were ut- 
terly unknown until Newton's law revealed them. A 
general law, like that which explains the elliptical plan- 
etary orbits, or that which explains the elliptical ocean 
currents, is a chain that binds innumerable facts together 
into a single scientific system. These laws are the bright- 
est stars that illuminate the celestial vault of science. A 
knowledge of isolated facts and minor details may be 
acquired by the lowest men, and even by the lower ani- 
mals ; but a knowledge of the general laws of nature is 
ennobling, and partakes of the sublime ; it is the nearest 
approximation to Omniscience that a human mind is 
capable of making.* The elliptical theory produces 

* I am unwilling to allow this opportunity to pass without call- 
ing attention to some of the coincidences between the Grenesis of 
the Bible and of modern science. 

1st. Genesis is the first and most ancient book in which man- 
kind were informed that there was a time when this world did not 
exist ; modern science teaches the same truth. 

2d. Genesis teaches that after the world was created "the 
earth" — the " dry land" — was without "form and void." Geol- 
ogy now confirms this statement. 

8d. Genesis represents the water, in the beginning, as covering 
the whole world; geology demonstrates that before the "dry 
land" — the continents — were formed, the globe was covered by 
the ocean. 

4th. Genesis afiirms that " the Spirit of God moved upon the 
face of the waters," gathered them together," "called them seas," 
and caused the "dry land" — the continents — to "appear." This 
is the fundamental proposition of geonomy. 



16 INTEODUCTION. 

even a greater revolution in geology than gravitation 
did in astronomy. It banishes a greater number of 
fallacies, and explains a greater number of otherwise 
unaccountable facts. This becomes evident when we 
compare it with its only rival, the cooling and shrink- 
ing theory, which, even if true, explains nothing, 
whereas the elliptical theory, combined with geology, 
explains nearly everything. Newton proved that a 
combination of forces caused the planets to move in 
elliptical paths, and our author that a combination of 
forces caused the ocean currents to move in elliptical 

5th. Genesis represents the "dry land" as not appearing until 
the third day or period, and geology proves that the globe and the 
ocean existed several ages before the dry land. But, according to 
the "cooling and shrinking" hypothesis, which Prof. Dana, in 
accordance with nearly all geologists, assumes to be an " admitted 
fact," the dry land must have appeared first, for water could not 
possibly have remained on a red-hot globe. 

Our theological geologists must acknowledge that, if their the- 
ory is true, it is very strange that Moses neglected, or was not in- 
spired, to, inform us that the land was not only dry but " red-hot" 
before the ocean enveloped it. 

6th. Genesis represents the aquatic animals as being created 
first, the higher land animals next, and man last of all. The 
geological fossils confirm this representation. 

In conclusion, I would remark that It is the duty of every 
Christian soldier to "gird up his loins like a man," and contend 
for the truth which God, in his providence, imparts to us, 
whether it comes in the form of science or of Divine revelation. 
In the language of Milton, — 

"Let truth with error grapple. 
Who ever knew her put to worse in a free and open encounter ?" 

W. K. C. 



INTEODUCTIOlSr. 17 

paths when there were no lands. If we study both of 
these systems of ellipses, and compare them, we find 
that our author had much the more difficult task to 
perform, and much the more complex problem to solve. 
The planetary ellipses are produced by two forces only, 
one tangential to the other, and both acting constantly ; 
the oceanic ellipses are produced by the operation of 
four inconstant forces, — north, south, east, and west. 

In the first section of the ellipse, from the twentieth 
parallel to the forty-fifth, the north and east forces 
combine; in the second section, the east force acts 
singly; in the third, the east and south combine; in 
the fourth, the south and west combine; in the fifth, 
the west acts singly ; in the sixth, the north and west 
combine. To render the problem still more complex, 
the resistance of the inert ocean to the passage of the 
current through it must be taken into the account ; and 
our author has demonstrated that its effect is to vary 
the form of the ellipse and make it irregularly rhom- 
boidal. But, notwithstanding the complexity of the 
forces that produce and that derange the ellipses, they 
harmonize most wonderfully with the outlines of the 
continents. 

It may be remarked, that the laws and forces by 
which the planetary ellipses are produced would remain 
the same if the planets were all stricken from existence ; 
so, also, the laws and forces that produce the oceanic 
ellipses would exist if there had never been any oceans 
or continents on the globe. If Mars, or any other 
planet, has an ocean analogous to ours, the same forces 
b 2* 



18 INTRODUCTION. 

aud causes must produce analogous effects upon its cur- 
rents. If there had been no sediment for the ocean cur- 
rents to distribute, the three pairs of ellipses would have 
been formed just the same, and would have continued to 
circulate through all time, and with even greater regu- 
larity than they actually have done. 

There are but few sciences that have a mathemati- 
cal basis. Astronomy, optics, chemistry, and mechanics 
have this great advantage. Our author's discovery adds 
another to the list, and thus elevates it to the highest 
rank. 

W. E. COOVEET. 

Pittsburgh, Pa. 




20 



Fig. 1. — Ideal Map. 

This ideal map represents and illustrates the whole of geonomy 
at once. 

The reader will perceive that the six ellipses are drawn and 
arranged in strict accordance with mathematical and theoretical 
principles. They are all alike in size, they are of the same form, 
their intervals are the same, and each southern ellipse is the same 
distance east of its northern mate ; yet with all these peculiarities, 
it will be ohserved that the outlines of the present actual conti- 
nents, which are drawn in the intervals, coincide with the ellipti- 
cal currents in such a manner as to prove that the relation must 
he one of cause and effect. 

The map demonstrates that the analogies and repetitions of the 
forms of the continents, and also the trends of the shores, result 
from the forms and positions of the ellipses. 

The principal departures from the elliptical ideal map have been 
produced by the raising of the bed of the North Indian Ocean, and 
by the southern Glacial Epoch, which caused the sinking of the 
areas marked G G G. 

The arrows in the equatorial line indicate the course of the 
equatorial counter-current, which flows between the two westward 
equatorial currents. The other arrows indicate the directions of 
the elliptical currents. 

We would call special attention to, — 

1. The analogy between the western curve of southwestern 
North America and of southwestern Africa. 

2. The analogy between the Caribbean Sea, including the Gulf 
of Mexico, the western part of North Africa, and the China and 
East Indian Sea. 

3. The northeast trend of the eastern shore of the United States 
and of the eastern shore of Asia. 

4. The hollow in the northwest coast of North America and the 
southwest coast of South America. 

5. The hollow or gulf on the west of Panama and of the Gulf 
of Guinea. 

6. The pointed extremity of South America at Cape St. Eoque 
and the pointed extremity of eastern Africa. 

7. The loxodromic trend of Central America and of the islands 
between Asia and Australia. 

21 



# 



GEONOMY. 



SYNOPSIS. 



That the reader may form a general idea of the sys- 
tem of Geonomy without perusing the whole book, the 
most essential propositions are included in the following 
synopsis : 

1. All the elevations of the earth's crust have resulted 
from the sinking of the ocean basins, or of smaller local 
basins, beneath the weight of the sediment. 

2. When the ocean covered the globe, there were three 
pairs of elliptical currents that collected sediment on the 
ocean's floor, the weight of which produced three pairs 
of sinking basins, namely, the North and South Atlan- 
tic, Pacific, and Indian Ocean basins. 

3. The fluid or plastic lava forced from beneath the 
sinking basins was driven under the crust in the inter- 
oceanic spaces, and by raising them created three pairs 
of continents, namely. North and South America, Eu- 
rope and South Africa, and Asia and Australia. 

4. The elliptical currents in each hemisphere were all 
limited to the zone between the equator and the forty- 
fifth parallel. 

23 



24 GEONOMY. 

5. The southern ellipses were placed about fifty degrees 
of longitude east of the northern, and, consequently, the 
continents are equally unsymmetric ; besides, the central, 
or tropical continents — the isthmuses — are distorted. 

6. The resistance of the inert ocean to the passage of 
the currents caused the ellipses to be irregular in form, 
and these irregularities are impressed upon the outlines 
of the continents. 

7. The lava that was forced from beneath the sinking 
basins up under the continents, raised those parts of the 
continents most that were nearest to the ocean ; conse- 
quently, it is there that all the plateaus, or high table- 
lands, are situated. It is also there that the surfaces of 
the continents are most corrugated by the lava beneath 
the crust ; the lowest lands are at a considerable distance 
from the great oceans. 

8. While continents, including plateaus, were raised 
in consequence of the sinking of the great ocean basins, 
nearly or quite all continental islands, and upheaved 
mountain ranges, resulted from local and limited de- 
pressions made in submarine parts of rising continents. 

9. The raising of the laud between tlie 45th parallel 
and the pole, by excluding the warm tropical currents, 
produced glacial epochs in the circumpolar regions. 

10. The floor of the North Indian basin has been 
raised above the sea and added to the continents of 
Asia, Europe, and Africa. 

11. Earthquakes are produced by the perceptible 
movements of the lava under the continents from 
beneath sinking basins. 



GEOlSrOMY. 25 



SECTION I. 

/ 

PRELIMIISTAEY AND HISTORICAL. 

The word geoiiomy is from the Greek ge, the earth, 
and nomos, a law, and is analogous to astronomy, which 
is from astron, a star, and nomos (see Worcester's Un- 
abridged Dictionary). Unfortunately, there is no name 
in use for the science of the earth besides geography, 
which literally signifies a description of the earth, or 
geology, which is a discourse concerning the earth, and 
which is generally understood to relate to the successive 
changes of the earth before reaching its present condition. 
A term is wanted that, without including the details of 
paleontology, will be sufficiently comprehensive to era- 
brace not only a description of the appearances which 
the surface of the globe presents, but also an account of 
the dynamical causes that produced those appearances. 
Hitherto, geology, with all its achievements, has failed 
to furnish tlie principles which are requisite to make 
physical geography a system ; the two subjects have had 
so little in common that, in many of our schools, they 
have been taught separately. It is expected that this 
treatise, by giving reasons for the existence, the forms 
and positions of the continents, will supply the links 
necessary to connect the two subjects. 

The reader will find that this is not a controversial 
work. None of the generally admitted /acfe of geology 



26 GEONOMY. 

are questioned, thougli the commonly-received liypot. _ 
esis of "the cooling and shrinking of the globe" is i 
longer supposed to be needed to account for the exist.._ 
ence of oceans and continents. If it is true that the ^ 
shrinkina; of the interior of the earth rendered it neces- 
sary for its crust to subside in some places, and main- 
tain its position in others, it is obvious that it must 
have subsided the most readily and rapidly in those 
places where it was most heavily loaded with sediment. 
Again, if the crust, in sinking beneath its own weight, 
would produce " lateral thrusts" against the borders of 
the continents with sufficient force to raise them and 
to corrugate the strata, surely the addition of stratified 
sediment, more than a mile in thickness, would not 
render the lateral pressure any less effective. It will 
be found that while the novelties we introduce in these 
pages are additions to our knowledge, they are not hos- 
tile to any of the reasonable doctrines formerly inculcated 
by competent teachers. The discovery of the forces that 
produce the elliptical orbits of the planets did not set 
aside any of the facts of astronomy previously known, 
but it added many new and interesting truths, and 
bound the whole together into a beautiful and system- 
atic science. Very similar, we believe, will be the 
consequences of the discovery of the causes and effects 
of the elliptical currents of the ocean upon physical 
geology. 

When the observations and reports of the great navi- 
gators of the sixteenth century had enabled geographers 
to draw outline maps of all the continents, philosophers 



GEONOMY. 



27 



began to speculate concerning the causes of their peculiar 
for'kis and analogies. It was observed that North and 
South America constitute a pair of continents united by 
an isthmus ; Europe and Africa, a second pair, also united 
by an isthmus ; and Asia and Australia is a third pair, 
connected by a chain of islands that are equivalent to an 
isthmus. The three pairs seem to be repetitions of each 
other and to suggest the idea that the forces, whatever 
they were, that produced one pair, repeated their oper- 
ations to produce another, and then repeated again to 
produce a third pair. 

The continents are all broad at the north and pomted 
at the south, and the trends of their shores are, almost 
without exception, loxodromic ; that is to say, they do not 
trend directly north and south, nor east and west, but 
northeast and southwest, or northwest and southeast. 
There is another fact that seems to have been overlooked 
until it was mentioned by the present writer, and that is 
that the analogies of the continents are all confined to 
the zone between the equator and the forty-fifth parallel. 
We shall have occasion to refer to this fact hereafter. It 
was also observed that while there were three pairs of 
continents, there were only two and a half pairs of oceans ; 
the former existence of the North Indian was then un- 
known. Alexander Keith Johnson, the learned British 
geographer, remarked that all the continents together are 
equtl to three Americas. President Edward Hitchcock, 
in a conversation with the author, said that it would be 
a strong recommendation of any new theory of the earth, 
if it would account for the analogies of the continents. 



28 GEONOMY. 

The Baron Humboldt expressed a doubt whether the 
causes of the continental forms would ever be discovered. 
He founded this idea upon the supposition that the forces 
which upheaved the lands are in the interior of the globe 
beyond the sphere of human observation.* We shall en- 
deavor to demonstrate that the reason why so many dis- 
tinguished scieuticians have failed in their researches, is 
because they were not in possession of the elliptical key, 
without which it was impossible to unlock the mystery 
of the ocean. 

In 1649, before the founders of the science of geology 
were born, Descartes proposed the cooling and shrinking 
hypothesis of the origin of oceans and continents, which 
was afterwards advocated by Leibnitz, by Buffon, and 
by Cuvier, and has since been sanctioned by nearly all 
geologists. They supposed that the earth was at first a 
globe of fiery fluid, and that it cooled until a crust was 

* "Very little can be empirically known concerning the causal 
connection of the phenomena of the formation of continents, or of 
the analogies and contrasts presented by their configuration. . . . 
All that we know is that the active c'ause is subterranean. We 
deem the force accidental owing to our inability to define it, as it 
is removed from the sphere of our comprehension." — Humboldt's 
Cosmos. 

" No adequate cause has yet been assigned for the present distri- 
bution of land." — Prof. GeiJde, Ed'mihui'gh. 

" The cause of the present positions of the dry land is as yet 
beyond the indications of science." — Prof. Page, Edmburgh. 

" We are far from a rational explanation of the observed forms 
of the continents. . . . The inequalities of the earth's crust are 
facts in nature that have arisen from the conflict of manifold forces 
acting under unknown conditions." — Encyclopaedia Britannica. 



GEOJSrOMY. 29 

formed upon its outer parts ; ever since then the interior 
lias continued to cool and shrink, and the crust to sink 
in some places and maintain its elevation in others. 

In 1787, Werner, a mining engineer, drew attention 
to the fact that the rocks in Germany are constituted and 
arranged in such a manner as to indicate that they are 
composed of sediment, which has been deposited in suc- 
cessive strata at the bottom of the sea. Shortly after- 
wards, William Smith, an English engineer, announced 
the much more important discovery that the fossils in the 
strata indicate their relative ages. This brought to the 
investigation a great number of expert naturalists, whose 
combined labors have created the present system of 
geology and paleontology. 

Although this science has not revealed the causes that 
gave the continents their forms and positions, it has 
pointed out the areas that first emerged from the ocean, 
those that rose next, and so on to the present time. We 
have learned that the first dry lands in North America 
were those in the northern parts of the continent, and 
that they gradually extended, first south and east, and 
^:hen west. The same is true of South America and 
of Asia. Europe commenced rising in the north, and 
the dry land gradually extended south and east. We 
know that not far from two-thirds of Europe, Asia, and 
Northern Africa were beneath the sea, when the greater 
part of North America was dry land. We also know 
that in the middle geologic ages, when but small areas 
of the present continents were dry land, the remainder 
was only covered by comparatively shallow water, and 

3* 



30 GEONOMY. 

was alternately rising and sinking, but on the whole 
was making its way slowly to its present elevation. But 
these and numerous other revelations, interesting as they 
are, shed no light upon the mysteries of physical and 
dynamical geology. 

The researches of practical geologists have extended 
but little below the surfaces of the lands, and have been 
guided almost exclusively by the fossil remains. If they 
have attempted to grapple with the problems of dynami- 
cal geology, and to account for the elevation of continents 
and mountains and the depressions of ocean basins, they 
have begun by adopting the hypothesis that the globe, 
ever ^ince its creation, has been cooling and shrinking, 
and then they have proceeded to infer that all the present 
inequalities of the earth's crust are the necessary effects 
of this cause. No one pretends that this hypothesis has 
been proved to be true, and for that reason we are not 
required to prove it to be false. It was invented upwards 
of two hundred years ago for the purpose of accounting 
for the origin of oceans and continents, and it has been 
retained and assumed to be true for no other reason than 
that no better has been j^roposed. Vice-President Hitch- 
cock, at the meeting of the American Association at 
Minneapolis, 1883, in his address said, — 

" As we are endeavoring to advance science, we must 
touch debatable topics. 

" We must assume the correctness of the commonly- 
received opinions concerning the earliest history of our 
planet, — that it has passed through the condition of a 
burning sun, the period of igneous fluidity. By sub- 



GEONOMY. 31 

sequent refrigeration it has become partially or wholly 
solid." 

Prof. James Hall, of Albany, refuses to advance 
science by assuming the correctness of this hypothesis. 
He has devoted a long life to the personal examination 
of geological formations, and has arrived at the con- 
clusion that " we hnow nothing about the history of the 
globe before the ocean covered it." 

Principal Dawson, the president of the Association, 
in his address at Minneapolis, after admitting that " the 
causes and mode of operation of the great movements 
of the earth's crust are still involved in mystery," adds 
that "one potent cause is the unequal settling of the 
crust toward the centre ; but it is not generally under- 
stood, as it should be, that the greater settlement of 
the ocean's bed has necessitated its pressure against the 
sides of the continent, in the same manner that a huge 
ice-floe crushes a ship in a pier. 

" The rocks of Pennsylvania and Maryland (the Ap- 
palachians) have been driven back in a curve to the 
west." 

It would be interesting to hear the learned ex-presi- 
dent apply his driving-back theory to the curves of the 
Carpathians, the Alps, the Himalaya, and still more to 
the curves of the Antilles and the Aleutians. The 
curves in those mountains and islands indicate that the 
driving has been toward the ocean, and " back in a curve" 
from the smaller basins and also/rom the continents. 

In 1857 the author wrote a small book (published by 
Phillips & Sampson, Boston), in which he endeavored to 



32 GEOJSrOMY. 

prove that the three pairs of continents were raised, in 
consequence of the sinking of the three pairs of ocean 
basins beneath the weight of the sediment distributed 
by the elliptical currents. At that time he was unable 
to give a satisfactory explanation of the causes of those 
currents ; his work was therefore imperfect and crude, 
but, with all its faults, it was entitled to the credit of 
being the first publication in which the elevation of all 
the continents was ascribed to the weight of the sedi- 
ment ; it was also the first to assert that the elliptical 
currents existed before the continents began to rise. 
Previous to that time, Sir John Herschel had suggested 
that possibly the weight of the sediment, derived from 
pre-existing shores, may, in some cases, have raised the 
adjacent borders of the continents ; but he said nothing 
of the causes that raised large areas, and determined 
their forms and positions ; nor did he propose any theory 
of the agency of ocean currents in creating the conti- 
nents. 

Prof. James Hall, of Albany, in his New York 
Report, published in 1859, expressed the opinion that 
the materials of the Appalachian Mountains were de- 
posited by ocean currents which flowed over that area 
while the continent was beneath the surface of the ocean. 
He does not say that the mountains were raised in con- 
sequence of the depressions thus produced ; but after 
the deposits were made, and the sunken mass was sev- 
eral thousand feet thick, the whole continent arose, 
bringing the mountains up with it. He does not pro- 
pose any theory, or suggest any cause for the rising of 



GEONOMY. 33 

the continent. In order to account for such a vast 
quantity of sediment being transported by the currents 
to this area, he imagines that there was, at no very great 
distance in the Atlantic, an extensive island or semi- 
continent from which the sediment was derived. 

About twenty years ago, some over-zealous friend of 
the author accused Prof. Hall of having adopted in his 
report the ideas published in " Geonomy" two years pre- 
vious, but the charge was unjust ; he proposed no theory 
to account for the elevation of continents or of moun- 
tains. The only point on which we agreed was that 
the ocean currents transported sediment, that by its 
weight produced depressions. He proposed no theory 
of the currents, and gave no reason why they flowed in 
one place or direction rather than another. 

In 1866, encouraged and assisted by the Hon. Ira 
Mayhew, the former Michigan State Superintendent of 
Education, the author published a new and improved 
edition of " Geonomy," which, though a pecuniary fail- 
ure, received the approbation of some of the most distin- 
guished scienticians in our country. In that work the 
true theory of the elliptical currents was published for 
the first time, though it was less accurately explained 
than in these pages. 

At the meeting of the American Association for the 
Advancement of Science, in Chicago, in 1868, the author 
was elected a member ; and on that occasion he read a 
paper on the ocean currents, in which essentially the 
same views expressed in this treatise on that subject 
were advocated. The paper was not only approved by 



34 GEONOMY. 

the members present, but Col. Foster (the president- 
elect, an experienced geologist) and Prof. Coffin (who 
had distinguished himself by his essay on the winds, 
published by the Smithsonian Institution) took part in 
the discussion, and sanctioned the new ideas advanced. 
An abstract of the paper was, without the request of the 
autlior, published in the annual volume of the " Pro- 
ceedings." It should be stated, however, that he did 
not, on that occasion, attempt to prove that the ocean 
currents were the agents that, by their operations, created 
the continents. He contented himself with getting the 
Association to sanction his elliptical theory of the cur- 
rents; for, this being admitted, the rest of the theory 
necessarily follows, as the reader will soon perceive. 
Since that time he has published several pamphlets, and 
articles in various journals, containing additions and cor- 
rections, the results of further investigations. 

* The second edition of " Geonomy" excited but little 



* Lord Bacon, commenting upon the Copernican system, more 
than fifty years after the great founder of modern astronomy died, 
used the following language : 

" In the system of Copernicus there are many grave difficulties. 
. . . The introduction of so many immovable bodies into nature, 
as where he makes the sun and stars immovable, . . . his making 
the moon adhere to the earth, and some other things which he as- 
sumes, are proceedings which mark a man who thinks nothing of 
introducing fictions of any kind into nature, provided his calcula- 
tions turn out well." 

Copernicus, when preparing his new system of astronomy, 
said, — 

" All which things, though they be difficult and almost incon- 



GEONOMY. ^ 35 

interest, and the money that it cost was virtually thrown 
away. The public generally knew little, and cared less, 
about geology, and the professional geologists were all 
apparently absorbed in the practical details of their local 
surveys. Besides, they had nothing to gain by patron- 
izing a new system which did not originate with them- 
bclves, or which did not emanate from some authority 
higher than their own. As for college professors, their 
business is to teach established truths, or what seems to 
be such, and not to introduce novelties. These remarks 
are made by way of excuse for the long neglect of the 
author to push his " Geonomy" into public notice. But 
although it is said that "the mills of the gods grind 
slow," they move at last with irresistible force. Several 
advances, which may fairly be termed discoveries, that 
were first published in " Geonomy,^' have since been re- 
discovered by distinguished authors. Reclus, in his 
" Earth," page 77 (published twenty years after the first 
edition of " Geonomy"), says, " If we take into the ac- 
count the geological conditions of Asia, we may, perhaps, 
be warranted in looking upon the Caspian, the Sea of 
Azof, and the other lakes of Western Asia, as the re- 
mains of the former ocean, which, in the northern hemi- 
sphere, formed the equipoise to the Indian seas. There 
would, then, have been three double oceaus,just as there 
are three continental pairs." 



ceivable, and contrary to the opinion of the majority, yet, in the 
sequel, by God's favor, we will make clearer than the sun, at least 
to those who are not ignorant of mathematics." — Whewell. 



36 GBONOMY. 

M. Fay, one of the first scienticians in Europe, director 
of the Observatory at Paris, in 1881 had the courage 
and sagacity to advocate the theory first published in 
"Geonomy" in 1857, that all the continents were ele- 
vated in consequence of the weight of the sediment 
accumulated in the floor of the ocean. 

All that is now wanted for these authors to complete 
their recognition of the system of geouomy is to adopt 
the elliptical theory of the currents. It is encouraging 
to find that the new theory begins to be tolerated, and 
that the idea of the former existence of a North Indian 
Ocean is no longer regarded as visionary. We may 
charitably suppose that the authors who have adopted 
these advances believed them to be original with them- 
selves, but the canons of science imperatively require 
that the first publishers of a new truth shall be entitled 
to the credit of priority, especially when several years 
have passed since the first publication.* 

* " Dr. Black lectured on latent heat in 1762. Lavoiseur and 
Laplace borrowed from him, but never mentioned him. Deluc 
persuaded Black to let him publish the discovery, and then claimed 
it as his own." — Encyc. Brit. 



GEONOMY. 37 



SECTION II. 

THE GENERAL OCEAN CUEEENTS. 

Bepoee commencing the explanation of the new 
theory of the ocean currents, let us state briefly the facts 
which are generally admitted, or that will not be denied, 
and therefore need not be discussed. 

1. There are five great oceans, in each of which there 
is an elliptical current or whirl of the water. 

2. None of these ellipses extend farther from the 
equator than the forty-fifth parallel, and none of them 
cross the thermal equator. Geographers do not state 
this fact in words, but they represent it on their maps, 
though they give no reason for it. 

3. In each of the oceans there is a gathering of grass 
and other materials within the central parts of the 
ellipse; and this is, with good reason, supposed to be 
the effect of the elliptical movement of the water. 

4. The elliptical currents flow constantly, whatever 
may be the direction or force of the wind. 

5. In each ocean the elliptical current flows due west 
near the equator, and due east between the fortieth and 
forty-fifth parallels. 

6. The part of an ellipse, or any other current, that 



38 GEONOMY. 

flows toward the equator is cold, and the part that flows 
from it is warm. 

7. The warm elliptical current always leaves the 
vicinity of the equator, in the northern hemisphere, 
flowing northwest, and in the southern hemisphere 
southwest. No theoretical explanation of this fact is 
given by geographers, except that it is supposed to be 
caused by the wind. A different explanation will be 
given in another place. 

8. All the writers upon the currents assume that they 
would not flow in ellipses were it not that they are con- 
fined within ocean basins, and are deflected from their 
courses by the shores of the continents. 

9. No writer has heretofore recognized the real dif- 
ference between the causes of the elliptical and the local 
currents. The elliptical currents have been regarded as 
mere local currents turned from their normal courses by 
shores or by winds. 

10. The inertia of the currents has only been regarded 
as influencing them when flowing north or south, but 
never when flowing due west or due east ; they were 
then supposed to be under the influence of the wind. 

11. The elliptical currents are not supposed to abrade 
the bottom of the ocean, nor, as a general rule, to approach 
within thirty or forty miles of the shore. 

12. It is now admitted by the best authors that the 
primitive cause of all the constant ocean currents is the 
difference of temperature in the different latitudes. Hal- 
ley, one of the most eminent of British philosophers, 
was the first to assert that the earth's axial rotation is 



GEONOMY. 39 

the cause of the currents flowing in loxodromic direc- 
tions, — that is to say, when a current of wind or water 
is by any cause impelled poleward, rotation deflects 
it obliquely eastward also ; and, when it is impelled 
equator ward, rotation deflects it westward. 

Prof. Huxley, in his Physical Geography, describes 
the Gulf Stream as a comparatively superficial current ; 
and we would add that the water of all the ocean cur- 
rents together probably constitute, at any one time, not 
one-fourth of the whole ocean. The forces that generate 
the currents — the cold and heat — act mostly at the sur- 
face, while the great cold mass of the ocean waters re- 
main below undisturbed. It is doubtful whether the 
cold currents that return from the polar seas reach the 
bottom of the ocean where it is very deep. 

It is convenient, when discussing^ the causes of the 
currents, to speak of heat and cold, and easting and 
westing, as if they were four distinct impelling forces. 
But in reality all the ocean currents are produced by 
two forces, — gravitation and the inertia of rotation. In 
the warm tropical latitudes heat expands and elevates 
the water, so that it gravitates and slides down an in- 
clined plane toward the pole ; in the high cold latitudes 
the water is condensed and sinks, and gravitates toward 
the tropics to restore the equilibrium. According to 
this statement, heat and cold are the primary causes, and 
gravitation the immediate cause, of all north and south 
currents. When this is understood, there is not much 
impropriety in speaking of heat and cold as impelling 
forces. 



40 



GEONOMY. 



The force that impels a current eastward is termed 
easting, and that which impels it westward is termed 
westing, and both result from inertia ;* in other words, 
from the earth's axial rotation. 

t The earth moves eastward at the twentieth parallel 
much faster than it does at the thirtieth or fortieth ; con- 
sequently, when a current leaves the twentieth j)arallel, 
it carries with it the easterly force which it has acquired 
there, this force is inertia {vis viva). But when a current 
flows in a contrary direction, instead of carrying a sur- 
plus of easterly force, it arrives at its terminus with a 
much less easterly force and motion than the ocean there 
possesses. The consequence is that the ocean waters rush 



* The word inertia originally signified the power of remain- 
ing passive or inert, but it has now come to he used to signify 
also the power of continuing in motion. Accurate writers, to pre- 
vent being misunderstood, sometimes use the term vis viva, or living 
force, to signify force that produces motion, and vis mortua, or dead 
force, to signify force that merely resists motion. The term vis 
inertia is by some used to signify active force, and inei^tia to sig- 
nify passive force. The force that produces the eastward course 
of currents is vis viva, and that which produces westing is vis 
mortua. 

•}■ The rotatory velocity of the globe 



At the equator is . 

" 5th parallel 

" 10th " 

" 20th " 

«' 30th " 

'« 45th " 

" 50th " 

" 60th " 



Miles per hour. 
1037 
1033 
1021 

975 

899 

735 

668 

520 



GBONOMY. 41 

against it and past it eastward, and all that it can do for 
a while is to maintain its position and resist the easterly 
motion of the ocean waters. This force of passive re- 
sistance is also inertia [vis mortua). It is termed westing, 
— not because it really produces a westward movement, 
for it does not, but because the things around it move 
east, and leave it west of them, and also because lookers- 
on are deceived by appearances, and made to suppose that 
it is the current moving west, and not the ocean and earth 
moving east. 

Every one who has studied astronomy is aware that it 
is impossible to form a correct idea of the subject with- 
out first becoming acquainted with the laws of the forces 
that produce the elliptical orbits. The same is true of 
geonomy : it is absolutely necessary, in the very begin- 
ning, to clearly understand the elliptical ocean currents, 
the forces that produce and that resist them, and the laws 
that govern these forces. 

The difference of temperature in the different latitudes 
is the primary cause of all constant ocean currents. All 
the currents that flow toward the equator are cold, and 
all that flow from it are warm ; all the currents that flow 
to the polar seas are warm, and all those that flow from 
them are cold. 

It is assumed by all writers on the currents, that when 
one flows from the tropics it has warmth enough to impel 
it to the pole ; and when a cold current flows toward the 
tropics, it has coldness enough to impel it to the equator. 
It is evident that this is an error, for it is certain that in 
each of the oceans the greater part of the warm water 

4* 



42 GEONOMY. 

that jflows from the tropics does not flow more than half- 
way from the equator to the pole : it does not flow nearer 
the pole than the forty-fifth parallel. Now, if it is the 
warmth, and nothing else, that impels a current toward 
the pole, it follows that when the current ceases moving 
poleward, at the forty-fifth parallel, it is because its 
warmth is exhausted, or is insufficient to impel it farther. 
So, also, if it is coldness that impels a current toward the 
equator, and if it ceases moving in that direction before 
it quite reaches the thermal equator, as the elliptical cur- 
rents all do, the reason is that it has lost its impelling 
cause — its coldness. Again, if a large current flows 
from the tropics, and when it is moving poleward it 
divides into two branches, and one branch flows on to 
the polar seas, while the other ceases flowing in that 
direction at the fortieth or forty-fifth parallel, we know 
that the reason is that the branch that flows to the polar 
seas is the warmer, and the branch that falls short is the 
colder. These facts, which appear to be very simple, are 
important, as we shall hereafter perceive, though they 
have hitherto been overlooked. 

* Another great mistake has been made, even by writers 



* "Sir Charles Lyell, referring to the eflPect of the rotation of 
the earth on its axis wpon the currents, says it ' can only come into 
play when the waters have already been set in motion, and when 
the direction of the current happens to be from south to north 
or from north to south.' " — Prin. of Qeol. 

"The earth's rotation is not supposed to be a cause of motion 
in the waters ; but there being a movement for other reasons, 
it gives (in the northern hemisphere) easting to the flow in the 



GEONOMY. 43 

of reputation ; they have assumed that the earth's rota- 
tion only affects the currents while they are moving north 
or south. In the northern hemisphere, they state cor- 
rectly that a current which is impelled due north is 
deflected eastward by rotation, so that it really moves 
northeast; but when it reaches its northern terminus 
they assume that the easterly force, derived from rotation, 
ceases to operate. This is an error ; they have strangely 
overlooked the real nature and effects of inertia. 

The truth is that when a current from the tropic 
reaches the forty-fifth parallel, although its northerly 
force — its extra warmth — may be exhausted, its easterly 
force — its vis inertia — is not : it continues to act alone, 
and impels the current due east. So also, when a cold 
current flows within five or ten degrees of the equator, 
and loses its extra coldness, and can flow no farther in that 
direction, its inertia acts alone, and impels it relatively 
due west. 

The earth, in the twentieth parallel, at the Gulf of 
Mexico, moves eastward more than two hundred miles 
per hour faster than it does at the Banks of Newfound- 
land, in the forty-fifth parallel. When the water from 
the Gulf reaches the Banks, though its extra warmth is 
nearly or quite exhausted, so that it can move no farther 
north, it still retains the greater part of the easterly force 
which it brought with it from the Gulf, and which im- 
pels it due east nearly across the Atlantic. This con- 
northern direction, and westing to the flow in the eastern 
direction." — Dana. 



44 GEONOMY. 

Bervation and persistence {vis viva) of the easterly force 
has been ignored, or under-estimated, by geographers. 
They have been familiar with the fact that the current 
flows due east from the Banks* of Newfoundland more 
than two thousand miles, and then turns south, and they 
have imagined that it was turned out of its proper north- 
ern course by the wind, by the Banks, or by the cold 
current that flows from the Arctic Sea. But when we 
consider that the current leaves the Gulf with an east- 
erly motion of about two hundred miles per hour greater 
than the ocean at the Banks possesses, and carries nearly 
all this extra easting to the Banks, we perceive that there 
is no need of invoking the wind, or any other additional 
or imaginary force, to impel it due east when its warmth 
is exhausted. If a man could be instantly transferred 
from the middle of the Gulf to the Banks, he would find 
himself moving eastward at the rate of two hundred miles 
per hour ; or if he could, on the contrary, be transferred 
from the Banks to the Gulf, he would find the earth 
there moving past him eastward and the west coming 
toward him at the rate of two hundred miles per hour. 
When these facts are fully appreciated we shall cease 
speaking of the easterly force as merely an attendant of 
the north and south currents. . . . The force derived 
from rotation not only acts in some places separately, and 



■* "^The current passes the Newfoundland Bank and stretches 
over toward Europe, then a part bends southeastward to join the 
tropical current and complete the ellipse, the centre of which is 
the Sargasso Sea." — Dana. 



GEONOMY. 45 

independently of the north and south forces, but it is a 
much greater force than they. This is demonstrated by 
the fact that the diameters of the ellipses, in all the 
oceans, are greater east and west than north and south. 

We often speak of the trade-wind blowing west, and 
of the equatorial current flowing west. It is often con- 
venient, and perhaps generally harmless, to use this 
language, but in reality neither the wind nor the water 
moves west at all. Let us explain. "When a cold cur- 
rent from the north approaches within five degrees of the 
equator, and loses its coldness, so that it can flow no 
farther south, its inertia (lack of easterly force) enables 
the western part of the ocean to move eastward past it, 
and thus bring the current into a relatively more western 
position. The process may be familiarly illustrated by 
laying a sheet of paper on a table, and with the left 
hand moving it slowly eastward, while, with the right 
hand, a pencil is moved due south on the paper. The 
line drawn'will be a curve southwest. When the pencil 
is near the top of the sheet of paper (which may repre- 
sent the equator), if it is moved eastward very slowly, 
while the paper is moving east much faster, the pencil- 
mark will be drawn due west, though the pencil has not 
moved west at all, but, on the contrary, has slowly 
moved east. 

When the current flows from the Gulf to the Banks, 
it really does move eastward faster than the earth and 
ocean beneath it, and it continues to do so after it reaches 
the Banks, and ceases to move north. ... To illustrate 
this with our sheet of paper, we may move it east as 



46 GEONOMY. 

before with the left hand, and with the right hand move 
the pencil ea.st faster than we do the paper with the left. 

These illustrations enable us to perceive that it is un- 
necessary to attribute the apparently westward move- 
ment of the equatorial current to the winds, as so many 
writers have done. The trade- winds themselves do not 
blow west, though they seem to do so. They come from 
the higher and colder latitudes, as the ocean currents 
also do, and bring their inertia (lack of easterly force) 
with them. It would be quite as correct to say that the 
ocean currents cause the trade-winds as that those winds 
cause the equatorial currents. 

The writers upon this subject seem to have assumed 
that the force communicated by rotation is all expended 
as fast as it is received, so that when, in the northern 
hemisphere, a current reaches its northern terminus, it 
is destitute of easterly force; and when it reaches its 
southern terminus, it is destitute of westerly force. 
When, therefore, they are called upon to account for 
the due easterly or due westerly courses of the currents, 
they have recourse to the wind. The idea that the 
easterly and westerly currents are influenced by inertia 
alone does not seem to have occurred to any of them. 

It is undoubtedly true that the trade-wind, at the 
equator, apparently moves west faster than the equator- 
ial current, since it fills the sails of vessels and drives 
them westward more rapidly than the current moves ; 
and this is probably the reason why the trade-wind has 
been supposed to produce the current. It is worth 
while, therefore, to inquire why the wind appears to 



GEONOMY. 47 

move west faster than the current.* The most reason- 
able explanation appears to be, that the wind moves 
more rapidly north and south than the ocean current 
does, and therefore loses less of its easterly or its west- 
erly force (its inertia) on the way. When, for example, 
the wind leaves the thirtieth parallel, it has the slow 
easterly motion proper to that latitude, and when it 
reaches within five degrees of the equator, it is still 
nearly as slow as when it started. The slower the east- 
erly motion of the trade-wind really is, the more rapid 
is its apparent westward movement; for, in reality, 
nothing near the equator moves westward, — everything 
is moving eastward ; but the earth itself, including the 



* Sir Charles Lyell, referring to the opinion that the deep cur- 
rents are caused hy the winds, quotes the observations of Darwin, 
that " notwithstanding the great force of the waves on the South 
American shore, all rocks sixty feet under water are covered 
with sea-weed, — the effects of the wind being only comparatively 
superficial." — Prin. of Geol. 

Prof. Guyot, the most accurate of geographers, says, " The same 
forces drive both the wind and the ocean currents in a common 
direction. 

"A knowledge of the one will facilitate the understanding of 
the other. 

" The equatorial current is analogous to the trade- winds, it has 
even been thought that these winds were the cause of it ; but it is 
too deep and rapid to admit of being explained by their action 
alone. 

" Since the general winds, as we have seen, owe their origin to 
this same cause, we shall not be surprised to find a similarity, and 
in some cases a remarkable coincidence, between the march of the 
atmospheric currents and that of the currents of the ocean." 



48 GEONOMY. 

general ocean and atmosphere, moves eastward fastest, 
the equatorial current next fastest, and the trade-wind 
the slowest, and for this very reason it seems to move 
west the fastest. If two men run a race east, the one 
who runs the slower will get continually farther and 
farther west of his opponent, though he is all the while 
running east. It is only in this sense that winds, or 
ocean currents, may be said to move west. Suppose a 
current of wind and another of water to start together 
from the Gulf of Mexico (twentieth parallel), and move 
to the Banks of Newfoundland (forty-fifth parallel), and 
suppose that when they arrive there they both cease to be 
warm, and begin to move east, — would they move with 
equal rapidity? probably not. In the first place, the wind 
will arrive at the forty-fifth parallel much the sooner, 
and bring more of its easterly force (inertia) with it; 
the water current will arrive long afterwards, and bring 
less easterly force, and both currents will move due east, 
but the wind the faster ; now, although we should not 
say that the wind jproduced the water current, we might, 
with some reason, say that it increased it, at least at the 
surface. 

The winds blow relatively west near the equator, 
and east near the forty-fifth parallel, in all the oceans; 
they cannot do this without moving in ellipses. If 
they move in ellipses now, they surely did when there 
was no land to obstruct or deflect them. If, therefore, 
any one asserts that the winds cause the ocean currents 
to flow in ellipses, the statement, even if true, is no 
serious objection to our geonomic theory. We contend 



GEONOMY. 49 

that the ocean currents moved in ellipses of a certain 
form when there was no land, — the cause of that move- 
ment, though important, is a secondary question. 

The probability is that the reason why scienticians 
have neglected to investigate the laws of the currents 
thoroughly, and to discover the truth concerning them, 
is, that they have not regarded them as of much im- 
portance. Had they suspected that the currents, by their 
operations, created the continents, they would long since 
have wrung from them all their secrets. 



-piQ_ 2.— A Pair of Ellipses. 
IT. 




50 



Fig. 2. 

This figure perfectly illustrates the elliptical theory. The two 
ellipses are limited to the two zones between the fifth and the 
forty-fifth parallels. Between the ellipses is an interval, in which 
an arrow indicates the course of the equatorial counter-current. 

Between the pole and the forty-fifth parallel, in both hemispheres, 
is a large area in which the Polar Seas became land-locked during 
the Glacial Epochs. The two arrows north and the two south of 
the forty-fifth parallels represent the currents to and from each 
ocean, and the Polar Seas, the exclusion of which produced the 
Glacial Epochs. 

The current in the northern hemisphere starts warm from the 
twentieth parallel (1), and flows northeast to the forty-fifth (2), 
it then, being neutral in warmth, flows under the influence of 
inertia due east to (3), and then, becoming cold, flows southeast to 
the thirtieth parallel (4), where, its easting being exhausted, its 
inertia causes it to flow southwest to the fifth parallel (5) ; here, 
its extra coldness being exhausted, its inertia causes it to flow due 
west to (6), when its warmth causes it to turn northwest and flow 
to the twentieth (1). The ellipse in the southern hemisphere is 
the same except that the current flows south from the equator and 
north toward it. 

The ellipses in this figure and also in Pig. 1 are made angular, to 
indicate the turning points more precisely, but in reality the cur- 
rents turn in curves. 



51 



52 GEONOMY. 



SECTION III. 

THE ELLIPTICAL, CUERENTS. 

The nature of the forces that operate to produce all 
the ellipses* may be sufficiently illustrated by the one 
that circulates around the North Atlantic basin. This 
current starts warm from the Gulf of Mexico and its 
vicinity, near the twentieth parallel, and flows northeast to 
the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. There it divides; 
one branch, which is still warm, continues to flow north- 
east to the British, the Baltic, and the Arctic Seas ; but 
the main branch, having lost its extra warmth and re- 
tained its easting, flows due east from the Banks nearly 
across the ocean ; but before it reaches Europe, its in- 
creasing coldness causes it to turn and flow southeast to 
the thirtieth parallel ; at this point its easterly force is 
exhausted. The current has now performed just half 
of its elliptical journey around the ocean. It has 



* Eeferring to the fact that in each ocean there is an ellipse, 
Prof. Dana, in his Manual, remarks, " The plan or system for each 
ocean north and south of the equator is the same. A flow in 
either tropic from the east, and in the higher temperate latitudes 
from the west, the one flowing into the other, making an elliptical 
movement." 



GEONOMY. 53 

moved northeast, due east, and southeast. In perform- 
ing the other half it will move (apparently) westward 
instead of eastward (that is to say, it will move south- 
west, due west, and northwest). It starts cold from the 
thirtieth parallel, with only the easterly force proper to 
that latitude, and flows southwest nearly to the equator 
before the coldness, which impels it* south, is exhausted. 
But its inertia — its lack of easterly force — remains and 
impels it — apparently — due west nearly across the ocean. 
Before it reaches the South American coast it becomes 
extra warm, and, therefore, turns northwest, and con- 
tinues in that direction to the twentieth parallel, in the 
Gulf of Mexico, from whence it started, and thus it 
completes its elliptical circuit. 

If we make a drawing of this ellipse, we observe 
that it consists of two halves, in one of which the cur- 
rent moves more or less easterly, and in the other west- 
erly. In moving through the first half there is an 
excess of easting, and in the second half there is a lack 
of easting, — inertia, — the practical eiFect of which is the 
same. 

The easterly force is exhausted at the thirtieth parallel 
on the eastern side of the ocean, and the westerly force 



* " Of the mass of the water that is brought into the Mid- Atlan- 
tic by the Gulf Stream, it may be stated, with confidence, that the 
larger proportion turns southward to the east of the Azores, and 
helps to form the North African current. 

" The Gulf Stream when last recognized as a current is flowing 
due east, and its southern portion turns first southeast and then 
south. "—£wc3/. Brit. 

5* 



54 GEONOMY. 

— inertia — is exhausted on the western side at the twen- 
tieth parallel. 

In this treatise it is assumed that when the ocean 
covered the globe the elliptical currents, in the northern 
hemisphere, flowed west near the equator ; that they 
turned northeast at the twentieth parallel, due east at 
the forty-fifth, and southwest at the thirtieth ; but it 
must not be supposed that these were then, or are now, 
precisely the turning-points. At the present time there 
are several causes of variance, some of which did not 
exist then. Among the disturbing causes are : 

1. The unequal distribution of land in the two hemi- 
spheres. 

2. The great elevation of land within the Antarctic 
circle. 

3. The land-locked condition of the Arabian and 
Bengal Seas. 

4. The communication of the Atlantic with the 
Arctic Sea. 

5. The great extent of land that has resulted from 
the elevation of the floor of the North Indian Ocean. 

6. The narrowing of the oceans and extension of the 
continents. 

In the Pacific the thermal equator and the westward 
equatorial current are, even in July and August, on the 
north side of the geographical equator, and in January 
they are not less than ten degrees north of it. In the 
Indian Ocean, on the contrary, the equatorial current 
in July and August is between ten and twenty degrees 
south of the equator ; consequently, the whole ellipse 



GEONOMY. 55 

is carried south. A large part of the current in this 
ocean flows as far south as the Cape of Good Hope be- 
fore it turns east. The difference between the currents 
of these two oceans can only be understood after con- 
sidering the difference in the positions of the lands north 
of them. The North Pacific is almost entirely cut off 
from the Arctic Sea. Behring's Strait is only thirty 
miles wide, and so shallow that but little cold arctic 
water can flow through. This ocean is less cold than 
any other, and the current, therefore, has less extra cold- 
ness to lose before it is in a condition to flow west. But 
the South Pacific is larger and colder, and its cold 
current must flow farther north to acquire the thermal 
condition necessary to qualify it to flow due west. 

In the Indian Ocean the land-locked Arabian and 
Bengal* Seas, north of the equator, are the warmest in 
the world, and, consequently, the current from the south 
loses its extra coldness and flows due west ten to twenty 
degrees from the equator. When the causes of the ellip- 
tical circulation are clearly understood, it is easy to prove 
that originally the ellipses were necessarily alike ; but 
when we apply the same principles to the currents as they 
flow at the present time, and endeavor to show why they 
differ from each other, we need correct information con- 

* The monsoon, or season- winds, of the Arabian and Bengal Seas 
are supposed to cause analogous changes in the currents of the In- 
dian Ocean ; but it is much more reasonable to suppose that the 
same causes that change the winds change the courses of the cur- 
rents also ; the writers upon this subject seem to have mistaken 
coincidences for causes. 



56 GEONOMY. 

cerning the peculiar circumstances of each ocean which 
tend to vary its elliptical circulation. 

But notwithstanding all the existing causes of vari- 
ance, the ellipses, the oceans, and the continents vary from 
their primitive forms too little to render the elliptical 
theory of the origin of the continents in the least degree 
doubtful. Perhaps the principal reason is that the plan 
of the oceans and continents was laid out, and their 
forms and positions fixed, before they began to emerge 
from the ocean, and were subjected to the action of the 
waves, — the unequal distribution of sediment from the 
shores, — and the invasion of floods and glaciers from the 
circumpolar regions. 



GEONOMY. 57 



SECTION IV. 

EFFECTS OF OCEANIC RESISTANCE UPON THE FORM 
OF THE ELLIPSE. 

It will be noticed that the ellipses are represented as 
of an irregular rhomboidal form, instead of being sym- 
metrical and oval. As this peculiarity has never before 
been referred to by any writer, it is proper to give it 
special attention. When the current starts from the 
twentieth parallel, on the western side of the ocean, it 
has the easterly force proper to that latitude ; and if it 
could move through the ocean (as planets are supposed 
to move through space) without encountering any resist- 
ance, or losing any of its force on the way, it would 
continue to move easterly (northeast, due east, and south- 
east) until it reached the twentieth parallel again on 
the opposite (eastern) side of the ocean. But it does 
encounter resistance ; and it expends so much force on 
the way to overcome it that it falls short about ten. 
degrees, and ceases moving southeast at the thirtieth 
parallel. In performing the second half of its elliptical 
journey it starts from the thirtieth parallel and moves 
southwest, due west, and northwest, but only reaches 
the twentieth parallel on the opposite (the western) side 



58 GEONOMY. 

of the ocean before it ceases moving west. It is neces- 
sary to understand this irregular form of the ellipses, 
and the causes of it, since it is impressed upon the out- 
lines of the continents, and thus confirms the elliptical 
theory of their origin. If the outlines of the continents 
are dependent upon those of the ellipses, there must of 
course be a general coincidence between them. 

It should be stated that the peculiar form of the ellip- 
ses was not discovered by observation, but by mathemati- 
cal reasoning. Tell any mathematical engineer that a 
current starts at the twentieth parallel, on the western 
side of the ocean, with the easterly motion of that lati- 
tude, and that it is expected to move through the ocean 
to the same latitude on the eastern side, and he will, with- 
out hesitation, assert that the resistance of the inert ocean 
will cause the expenditure of a certain quantity of the 
easterly force, so that it will fall short of the twentieth 
parallel, and begin to move southwest before it reaches 
there. How much it will fall short will depend upon 
the degree of resistance, and this can only be ascertained 
by observation. 

When the current leaves the thirtieth parallel on the 
eastern side of the ocean it has a cei'tain amount of 
easterly force, — no more and no. less than the earth has 
in that latitude. It has less easterly force than the ocean 
waters through which it now passes, but it has inertia, 
and if this could remain unchanged (if the current could 
receive no more easterly force on the way) it would con- 
tinue to move (relatively) west (southwest, due west, and 
northwest) until it reached the thirtieth parallel again 



GEONOMY. 59 

on the western side of the ocean. But it does con- 
tinually receive accessions of easterly force (loses more 
and more of its inertia), and consequently it falls short, 
and only reaches the twentieth parallel before it ceases 
moving west. The reader will perceive that this falling 
short varies the form of the ellipse. Another circum- 
stance that prevents the ellipse from being perfectly oval 
is that the inertia of the currents causes them to flow due 
west near the equator, and due east* near the forty-fifth 
parallel, consequently, the east and west sides of the 
ellipses are, for a short distance, straight instead of being 
curved. 



* " In its course to the north the Gulf Stream gradually trends 
more and more to the eastward until it arrives off the Banks of 
Newfoundland, where its course becomes due east." — Maury. 



60 GEONOMY. 



SECTION Y. 



LACK OF SYMMETRY. 



If we look at any map of the world we may observe 
that each of the southern oceans is about fifty degrees 
of longitude east of its northern mate: the South At- 
lantic is east of the North Atlantic ; the South Pacific 
is east of the North Pacific ; and the South Indian is 
east of the area that was formerly occupied by the North 
Indian. The positions of the continents are equally un- 
symmetrical : South America is east of North America ; 
South Africa is east of Europe ; and Australia is east of 
Asia. 

The obvious explanation is that the elliptical cur- 
rents commenced their career before the ocean basins 
were formed or the continents began to rise. As each 
ellipse was independent of every other, there was no 
physical necessity for their being arranged symmetri- 
cally north and south ; indeed, the chances were against 
such an arrangement. If we place a series of oval 
bodies, eggs for example, in a row, and then place 
another row parallel and in contact with them, and 
arrange them symmetrically, a little jolting will de- 
range their symmetry, and probably cause them to 



GEONOMY. 61 

assume nearly the same relative positions as tbose that 
the ellipses and oceans now actually occupy. Besides, 
if one southern ellipse were from any cause placed fifty 
degrees east, the other two would be forced to follow. 
Whatever may have been the cause, the fact is certain 
that all the oceans and continents north of the equator 
are placed west of their southern mates. 

The principal deranging effect of this lack of symme- 
try is upon the forms of the central, or tropical parts of 
the continents. This effect may be well illustrated if 
we draw an ideal map of the world, in which the oceans 
and continents are placed symmetrically north and south, 
and then run a knife through the map at the equator, 
and push the southern half a short distance east of the 
northern, and observe the effect upon the central con- 
tinents. The two halves are drawn apart, and made 
longer and narrower, so as to resemble Central America ; 
and, like that part of the continent, the trend will be 
loxodromic. The northern oceans also are pushed rela- 
tively westward, so as to form a gulf on the eastern side 
of the northern continent. The Gulf of Mexico was in 
part produced in this manner; so, also, was the China 
Sea. The western prolongation of Northern Africa was 
formerly a gulf, analogous to that of Mexico, and pro- 
duced in the same manner. 

The southern oceans are similarly pushed eastward 
into the western sides of the southern continents. This 
is well represented and strongly marked by the Gulf of 
Guinea, and in a lesser degree by the western side of 
Panama. 



62 GEONOMY. 

Geographers have often remarked the resemblance of 
the position and trend of Central America to the chain 
of islands connecting Asia with Australia. The explana- 
tion is found in the fact that both were produced by the 
original unsymmetrical arrangement of the ellipses before 
the continents began to rise. The western border of 
Northwestern Africa was at first analogous to Central 
America. 



GEONOMY. 63 



SECTION VI. 

LOCAL AND COUNTEE-CUEEENTS. 

When any part of the ocean becomes extra warm or 
extra cold, a current is generated, and the water, if 
warm, flows toward the pole, and if cold, toward the 
equator. A local current in the northern hemisphere, 
if warm and unobstructed, always flows northeast, and 
if cold, southwest. In the southern hemisphere, if warm, 
it flows southeast, and if cold, northwest. An elliptical 
current flows in all directions, and it sometimes hapjjens 
that, in a part of its course, a local current flows parallel 
with it, but in a contrary direction. These local coun- 
ter-currents have greatly puzzled geographers. As they 
made no distinction between the causes of local and of 
elliptical currents, and understood very little concerning 
the effects of inertia in forcing currents east and west, 
they were unable to understand that the counter-currents 
are regular and normal but local currents. 

There is a remarkable counter-current in the ISTorth 
Pacific,* which Prof. Page and Alexander Keith John- 

* " A third part of the excess of water drawn westward escapes 
back again eastward between the main branches of the equatorial 



64 GEONOMY, 

son and other geographers describe as "an equatorial 
counter-current." 

It flows eastward, according to Johnson's map, in the 
interval between the two great westward equatorial cur- 
rents, nearly the whole length of the ocean, from China 
to America. He asserts that it is the same westward 
equatorial current that, having reached its western ter- 
minus, has turned back, and escapes eastward. These 
highly respectable authors ascribe the great equatorial 
currents to the trade-winds. Is it not strange that it 
has not occurred to them that this large counter- current 
flows eastward in the very face of the same trade-wind 
that is supposed to blow the other two great equatorial 
currents westward? 

The fact is that the water in the space between the 
two great equatorial currents is warm, and of course 
it generates a series of local currents throughout its 
whole length, which would flow northeast if they were 
not, so to speak, fenced in, and forced to flow due east 
between the two great currents that are flowing west- 
ward. 

Lieut. Maury, in his " Physical Geography of the 
Sea," states the fact that the trade-wind commences in 



streams, and forms the counter-current known as the Guinea cur- 
rent." "In the Pacific part also returns toward America as a 
counter equatorial stream." — Phys. Geog.,\)j David Page, P.E.S., 
etc., Edinburgh. 

According to this author the trade-wind blows two-thirds of 
the water near the equator due west, and at the same time the 
other third " escapes back" due east in spite of the wind. 



GEONOMY. 65 

about the thirtieth parallel, in the northern hemisphere, 
to blow southwest, and in the same latitude in the 
southern hemisphere to blow northwest. But he frankly 
confesses that he can find no reason for it. We have 
given the reason why the ocean currents commence flow- 
ing southwest in the northern hemisphere and northwest 
in the southern in these latitudes, and of course the same 
explanation applies'to the winds. They are governed by 
the same general laws as the ocean currents, but are varied 
much more by local circumstances. 

Geographers have hitherto been unable to give a 
reason for the fact that in the northern hemisphere the 
current flows southeast from the fortieth or forty-fifth 
parallel to the thirtieth and then turns and flows south- 
west ; nor have they understood why the warm current 
flows from the equator northwest to the twentieth par- 
allel and then turns and flows northeast. 

Those authors who attribute wholly to the wind the 
current that flows due east from the Banks of Newfound- 
land, should give some reason why the same wind does 
not impel the whole of the Gulf Stream due east, instead 
of allowing it to divide, as it does, at the Banks, — one 
part flowing due east and then southeast, and the other 
part flowing northeast to the Arctic Sea. They should 
also explain why it is that, in the face of the same wind, 
a return current flows southwest /rom the Arctic. 

The Guinea current in the Atlantic is another local 
warm equatorial counter-current, generated in the inter- 
val, between the two great westward currents, near the 
equator, and flowing southeast into the Gulf of Guinea, 

6* 



6Q GEONOMY. 

while the great elliptical current is flowing in a contrary 
direction. The moment the distinction is clearly under- 
stood between the causes of the local and of the ellip- 
tical currents, the mystery of the counter-currents dis- 
appears. 

The Antarctic Drift Currents. — In the southern oceans, 
between the Antarctic coast and the forty-fifth parallel, 
there is apparently a general drifting of the surface of 
the ocean eastward. For want of a better reason, the 
geographers, including the distinguished mathematician 
Mr. Croll, ascribe this easterly drift to the winds that 
blow in the same direction there. Mr. Croll admits 
that these currents from the Antarctic would naturally 
flow northwest were it not for the great force of the 
wind that blows east. He does not pretend that the 
wind comes from the Antarctic coast, for if it did, he 
well knows that it would not blow east, but northwest. 
He must admit that it comes from the tropical region, 
and for that reason it blows east. Surely the same 
reason applies to the ocean current. It comes warm 
from the tropical latitudes, and when it reaches the 
forty-fifth or fiftieth parallel it is cold, and can flow no 
farther south ; but its easting is not exhausted, and con- 
sequently it flows due east. It is perfectly analogous to 
the currents that flow northeast and due east from the 
Grand Banks of Newfoundland. There is only one of 
the northern oceans that has free access to the Arctic 
Sea, but there are three great oceans in the southern 
hemisphere, each of which send offsets into the cold 
Antarctic seas, and these offsets unite to create an ap- 



GEONOMY. 67 

parent general " drift" of the surface of the ocean 
eastward. 

Prof. Houston, of Philadelphia, and several other 
respectable geographers, represent the currents as ap- 
proaching the equator from the north and from the 
south, meeting there in antagonism, and moving west- 
ward together. But the warm counter-current that 
flows east in the equatorial interval, proves that the 
great currents lose their northern and southern forces 
before they reach the thermal equator, for otherwise 
there would be no such interval and no such eastward 
equatorial counter-current. 

It is now asserted by the highest authorities, including 
Dr. Carpenter, that the movements of the currents north 
and south are caused by differences of temperature. This 
being admitted, when a warm current moves north to 
the forty-fifth parallel, and then ceases to move in that 
direction, it follows that it is because its extra warmth 
is expended. So, also, when a cold current moves to 
within five or ten degrees of the equator, and then 
ceases to move in that direction, it follows that it is 
because it has acquned the warmth normal to that 
latitude. 



G8 GEONOMY, 



SECTION A^I. 



LIMITS OF THE ELLIPSES. 



Theee were originally just three ellipses in each hemi- 
sphere, and all wore within the zone between the equa- 
tor and the forty-lifth parallel. If the warmth of the 
currents from the tropics had been much greater they 
would all have continued flowing poleward far beyond 
the forty-Hfth parallel. The fact that none of them ap- 
proached nearer to the pole is proof that they lacked 
the requisite thermal force. "When the water leaves the 
tropics it is not all equally warm ; and, on its way, 
those parts that are brought into contact with the air 
or the cold ocean water lose their extra heat and cease 
moving poleward, while the Avarmer parts continue 
flowing toward the pole. We know by observation 
that in all the oceans the greater part of the current 
ceases moving poleward before passing beyond the forty- 
fifth parallel, and we know that the current of warmer 
M'ater continues to the Polar Sea. 

When the ocean covered the entire globe there must 
have been an almost perfect equality between the 
ellipses: they probably all extended poleward to near 
the forty-fifth parallel ; and as the season changed they 



GEONOMY. 69 

swerved north and south across the geographical 
equator. 

We have seen good reasons why the ellipses are all 
limited north and south. What is it that limits them 
east and west, and causes them to form just three 
ellipses and no more in each hemisphere ? 

When the elliptical current reaches the thirtieth par- 
allel its easterly force is exhausted, it cannot therefore 
flow any farther east; so, also, when it reaches the twen- 
tieth parallel, it can move no farther west, for its inertia 
(westerly force) is exhausted there. The forces that pro- 
duce the ellipses are limited in all directions ; they can 
only impel a current north to one point and south to 
another, — east to one point and west to another, as we 
have already explained ; they could, therefore, originally 
produce only a definite number of ellipses in one hemi- 
sphere, and the same number in the other. To a 
mathematical and philosophical mind, the fact that there 
were just three oceans north of the equator and three 
south of it is very suggestive ; the fact that each of the 
ellipses is limited to the zone between the equator and the 
forty-fifth parallel is still more so ; when to this we add 
the fact that all the remarkable analogies of the three 
pairs of continents are confined to the same zones, the 
inference that the relation is one of cause and effect 
becomes irresistible. We shall demonstrate in another 
place that the limitation of the ellipses was the real 
cause of those hitherto mysterious events that occurred 
in the circumpolar regions during the so-called glacial 
epoch. 



70 GEONOMY. 

Judging by the geological indications, and the posi- 
tions of the land around the Arctic Sea, the elliptical 
currents must have been nearly, if not quite, the same 
in extent when the lower Laurentian rocks were de- 
posited as they are now. Would this have been the case 
if the heat of the sun and the internal heat of the 
earth had been much greater at that time (millions of 
years ago) than at present ? 

That the solar system, including the earth, has been 
condensed from extremely attenuated matter there can 
scarcely remain a doubt; but it does not follow that 
the sun or planets were ever hotter than they are now, 
or that the condensation resulted from cooling and 
shrinking. It is a much more reasonable theory that 
the condensation was produced by pressure, collisions, 
and chemical changes combined. Oxygen and fuel 
may both be cold as ice, yet, when combined, they 
produce condensation, accompanied with radiations of 
heat and light. Geonomy furnishes no evidence that 
the earth was ever hotter than it is now, or that its axis 
or its centre of gravity have ever changed. The indi- 
cations are that all the changes of the earth have 
resulted from " causes now in operation." 



GEONOMY. 71 



SECTION VIII. 

EXTENSION OF THE AEEAS OF THE CONTINENTS AND 
CONTEACTION OP THE BOUNDAEIES OF THE OCEANS. 

We all know by observation that the elliptical whirl 
of wind or of water tends to collect in the centre of the 
whirl the floating and the sedimentary materials that 
come within the sphere of its operations. The sargasso 
seas, as the collections of grass in the oceans are called, 
not only illustrate this tendency, but they inform us, in 
language plainer than that of words, that the same cen- 
tralizing process must have begun when the ocean was 
created, and that it has continued without interruption 
to the present day. Reason also informs us, without 
the need of observation, that if the hundredth part of 
an inch of organic or meteoric matter were thus accumu- 
lated on an ocean's floor in one year, or one century, after 
a definite number of centuries (a much smaller number 
than, according to geology, the oceans have existed) the 
pile would nearly reach the surface, — unless its weight 
caused the crust to sink and create an ocean basin. 

Furthermore it is certain that if six such sinking basins 
existed, three each side of the equator, between the equa- 
tor and the forty-fifth parallel, the fluid or plastic ma- 



72 GEONOMY. 

terial below the crust would be forced into the inter- 
elliptical spaces and elevate them, thus giving birth to 
three pairs of continents. Furthermore, as the basins 
continued to sink and the continents to rise, the conti- 
nental areas w^ould become wider, and the ocean basins 
narrower, for the reason that the sinking would be great- 
est in the centre. It is also evident that such changes 
would render it necessary for the crust to stretch or break 
in order to accommodate itself to the increased areas of 
surface which the depressions and elevations would pro- 
duce. Now, what are the facts furnished by geology ? 
The continents, since the first lands emerged, have con- 
tinued to become wider and the surface of the ocean to 
the same extent narrower. From the Laurentian age to 
the Neopliocene period, the lands continually advanced 
and forced the oceans to retire. The geological history 
of every continent illustrates this truth. 

The original tendency of the ellipses was to make the 
six ocean basins equal in extent ; but when we look upon 
a map of the world we find the Pacific very large, and 
the Atlantic, particularly the North Atlantic, small. The 
ocean currents themselves furnish no reason for this differ- 
ence. The cause must be found in the unequal manner 
in which the sediment was distributed. We have no 
means of knowing the causes of the unequal supply or 
distribution of the sediment before the lands emerged, 
and "we can only reason from what we know." If 
from any cause one ocean received a much greater quan- 
tity of sediment than the others, its central area would 
sink more, and consequently its edges would rise and 



GEONOMY. 73- 

emerge nearer to the centre, and thus make the basin 
narrower. Applying these remarks to the North Atlantic, 
geology supplies us with evidence that it was formerly 
wider than it is now. The Gulf Stream — a section of 
the elliptical current — flowed northwestward in the 
twentieth parallel, over the continent, beyond the Rocky 
Mountain area, and curved around and flowed east near 
the forty-fifth parallel. 

The sinking of the floor of the Atlantic raised a long 
low Appalachian island, on which the coal plants grew 
before the present mountains were created. At the south 
end of this island the Gulf of Mexico was afterwards 
located, and at the north end the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 
The elliptical current flowed west and northwest and east 
around this island, — entering by the area of the Gulf of 
Mexico, and escaping by the area of the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence. When the bottom of the northern part of 
the interior American sea became elevated, so that the 
current could not pass through, it was forced to turn back 
on itself and escape southward,* and then to flow north- 
ward on the eastern side of the Appalachian land, which 
was then a peninsula. 



* " The atsence of sediments from a large part of the continen- 
tal region must have been owing to the absence of the conditions 
on which their distribution depends. The currents of the ocean 
which ordinarily swept over the land (the Labrador current from 
the north and the Gulf Stream from the south over the interior) 
must have had their action partly suspended. This may have been 
xaused by a barrier," etc. — Dana's Manual on the Lower Silurian 
Age. 



74 GEONOMY. 

As the land continued to advance, encroaching upon 
the interior American sea, the waters retreated southward 
until all that is left of that sea is tlie present Gulf of 
Mexico. But even there the contest between the land 
and water continues ; the land is encroaching upon the 
Gulf, not only by the imperceptible rising of the conti- 
nent, but also by the addition of the vast quantities of 
sediment furnished by the Mississippi, and by the labors 
of an infinite number of coral-building aniraalculae. 

The former condition of South America was analogous 
to that of North America. The warm elliptical current 
from the tropics probably flowed southwest and passed 
into the interior of the continent near the area now 
occupied by the mouth of the Amazon, and then flowed 
south and southeast and passed out through the area 
now occupied by the mouth of the La Plata. The area 
occupied by the Brazilian mountains* was then an 
island analogous to the Appalachian island. When the 
interior parts of the continent arose the elliptical current 
was excluded and forced to flow as it does now, on the 
eastern instead of the western side of the mountains. 

* " In Brazil there are four parallel ranges of mountains from the 
plains of La Plata on the south to those of the Amazon on the 
north, and spreading inland for nearly eighteen hundred miles in 
a broad plateau, whose mean elevation is three thousand two hun- 
dred feet. These ranges or ridges of the table-land are separated 
from each other by the affluents of the Amazon and the St. Fran- 
cisco on the one hand, and by those of the Paraguay and Parana 
on the other, and succeed each other, ridge and plain, with wonder- 
ful continuity ; the Vertentes is the last, and gradually descends 
to the great plain of the continent." — Pagers Pliys. Geog. 



GEONOMY. 75 

The great interior North American basin was once 
analogous to the present Caribbean Sea, and the Ap- 
palachians were analogous to the Antilles. The ellip- 
tical current now passes through the Caribbean Sea 
and the Gulf of Mexico, and makes its exit through the 
Florida Channel. Let that channel be obstructed or 
blocked up by the elevation of the bed of the sea, and 
the current would be forced to turn back on itself south- 
ward, and escape on the eastern side of Cuba. If, then, 
the beds of the Caribbean and Mexican Seas should be- 
come dry land, the Antilles would be mountains analo- 
gous to the Appalachians, and the sea-bed analogous to 
the Mississippi and St. Lawrence Valleys. 

The North and South Atlantic ellipses are doubtless 
shortened east and west by the narrowness of the ocean 
basin ; this is, perhaps, one of the reasons why the Gulf 
Stream presses westward against the eastern side of the 
continent of America, and why a part of it pushes its 
way so far west in the Gulf of Mexico. The Atlantic 
Ocean appears to be too narrow for the natural capacities 
of the ellipse, and perhaps this is the reason of the great 
rapidity of the Gulf Stream. If it should become yet 
narrower, the ellipse might still exist, though "cribbed, 
cabined, and confined." The elliptical current which for- 
merly existed in the North Indian was shortened and 
restricted more and more until it finally ceased to circu- 
late. If the cooling and shrinking theory were true, 
would not all the ocean basins have become gradually 
wider and the continents narrower ? 



76 GEONOMY. 



SECTION IX. 



LOXODROMIC TEENDS. 



The trends of the principal shores of the continents, 
instead of being directly north and south, or east and 
west, are loxodromic, — that is to say, they are either 
northeast or northwest.* No one has hitherto been able 
to suggest a reason for this fact. Humboldt supposed 
that the cause was hidden below the crust of the globe, 
and consequently that it would never be known. The 
moment, however, that the light of the elliptical theory 
is brought to bear upon the subject the mystery disap- 
pears. All the north and south ocean currents, as we 
have seen, necessarily trend in loxodromic directions, 
and, of course, the shores of the continents which they 
created coincide with them. If it is objected that the 
currents coincide with the shores because they are de- 



* " Two great systems of courses or trends prevail over the world, 
a northwestern and a northeastern, transverse to each other. The 
islands of the oceans, the outlines and reliefs of the continents, and 
the ocean basins themselves alike exemplify these systems. 

"While there are many variations in the courses of the earth's 
feature lines, there are two directions of prevalent trend, — the 
northeasterly -and the northwesterly." — Dana^ Manual^ p. 29. 



GEONOMY. 77 

fleeted by them, and that if the shores were not there 
the currents would flow in other directions, — a perfect 
answer is found in the theory of the currents as taught 
by all geographers. It has been demonstrated that they 
would move in the same loxodromic directions if the 
shores did not exist. 

If lands near the equator should emerge from the 
ocean their trends would not be loxodromic, but east 
and west, for the reason that the currents there all flow 
in those directions. Why have not lands risen near the 
equator ? 

1. There are two equatorial currents there that flow 
due west. 

2. Between these two there is in the Atlantic and 
also in the Pacific a powerful counter-current flowing 
east. These three currents distribute sediment and pro- 
duce depressions so as to prevent elevations at the 
equator. 

3. The changes of the seasons cause these three cur- 
rents to swerve north and south over a broad zone. 
Even in the southern parts of the TSTorth Indian Ocean 
there is a broad area north of the equator, including the 
Arabian and Bengal Seas, in which there is no land, 
for the reason that the equatorial currents once flowed 
there. 

The northern shore of the North Atlantic would un- 
doubtedly have trended east and west were it not for the 
powerful north and south currents that flow to and from 
the Arctic Sea. Even as it is there are some reasons for 
the opinion that the so-called submarine "telegraphic 

7* 



78 GEONOMY. 

plateau" is only a submerged land, with an east and 
west shore. 

The north shore of the North Pacific has in the main 
an east and west trend, and thus coincides with the course 
of the elliptical current in that latitude. 



GEOlSrOMY. 79 



SECTION X. 



SEDIMENT. 



It cannot be proved directly, by ocular demonstra- 
tion, that the weight of sediment has produced a single 
depression of the earth's crust ; but we have indirect and 
circumstantial evidence of the most satisfactory charac- 
ter. When we see the impression of a human foot in 
the sand on the sea-shore, although we did not see it 
made, we know its origin by its numerous coincidences 
with real human feet. It is useless to object that a 
combination of accidental circumstances might have 
produced the resemblance: no one will believe it. 
When in addition we see six successive impressions of 
the feet, at such intervals and in such relative positions 
as generally occur between men's footsteps, all doubts 
vanish. So, also, when we find on one side of the equa- 
torial line three ocean basins, and on the other side three 
similar basins, in each of them an elliptical current, and 
all the ellipses limited to a particular zone ; when we 
find three pairs of continents very analogous to each 
other, each continent located between two ellipses, with 
all the analogies of the continents limited to the same 
zone, and the outlines coinciding: with the lines of the 



80 GEONOMY. 

ellipses ; when in addition we find that sediment, sev- 
eral miles in thickness, has been daring millions of 
years deposited and sunken within the central parts of 
the ellipses, we are ready to render a verdict. 

Leaving the elliptical theory of the currents entirely 
out of the question, there are strong reasons for sup- 
posing that the weight of sediment may produce de- 
pressions, and that these by reaction may produce eleva- 
tions ; but without that theory it would be impossible to 
prove the supposition to be true ; and, even if it could 
be proved, it would be of scarcely any use, either to 
geology or to geography. So far as utility is con- 
cerned, we might as well have the cooling and shrink- 
ing theory. The real and vital question is not merely 
what raised the continents, but what raised them with 
such forms and analogies, in such positions and number 
and limits, with such inequalities of surface, and such 
loxodromic shores and mountains. If it could be posi- 
tively demonstrated that the weight of sediment sinks 
ocean basins and raises lands, none of these questions 
could be answered without the elliptical theory. When 
the author, in his public lectures in New England and 
New York in 1853-57, first proposed the geonomic 
theory, he was not aware that any one had previously 
suggested that possibly the crust of the earth had, in 
some places, subsided beneath the weight of sediment. 
Capt. John Ericsson, of New York, the celebrated en- 
gineer and inventor, will doubtless recollect that about 
that time we discussed the question in his office, without 
knowing that Herschel had proposed this theory in a 



GEONOMY. 81 

letter to Lyell. It seems, however, that the arguments 
of Herschel failed to convince that eminent geologist. 
The author has invariably found that scienticians have 
regarded the idea of the sinking of the crust beneath 
the weight of sediment as a mere speculation, until they 
examined the elliptical theory of the currents, and per- 
ceived its relation to the forms and positions of the con- 
tinents. 

By means of soundings the depressions and elevations 
in the floor of the North Atlantic are well known to 
geographers. The greatest elevations are in the middle, 
and the depressions not far from the borders of the con- 
tinents. The most reasonable explanation of this fact 
appears to be that, although the greatest depressions 
were doubtless in the middle of the basins when the 
water covered the whole globe, they became greatest 
near the continents when the land furnished coarse and 
heavy sediment, which did not reach the centres of the 
basins. The volcanoes that rise up above the surface 
from the bottom of the ocean probably owe their eleva- 
tion to the inequalities of the pressures produced by 
sediment in different parts of the ocean floor.* 



* Prof. E. Owen, of New Harmony, Indiana, several years ago 
called attention to the fact that the great shore lines of the conti- 
nents are tangents from the Arctic or from the Antarctic Circle. 
No reason for this fact has heretofore been given, but our ellipti- 
cal theory furnishes the reason, by showing that the continents were 
raised in consequence of the sinking of the basins, and that these were 
produced by ellipses that were so limited that they could not extend 
the shore lines north or south beyond the forty-fifth parallels. 



82 GEONOMY. 

That the theory first published by the author in 1857 
has been gradually gaining ground, so far as it relates to 
the sources and the depressing effects of sediment, the 
following extracts render manifest. 

The following is from an English scientific journal 
entitled " Nature" : 

"the sinking of the earth's crust. 

" The extreme sensitiveness of the earth's crust to 
any changes in the distribution of weight upon its sur- 
face is best exemplified by those local depositions of 
matter which have attracted general attention at the 
present day. The chief of these is the transfer of 
matter by river action to large tracts, and its accumula- 
tion in such limited areas as plains, estuaries, and deltas. 
Borings of four hundred to five hundred feet have 
shown that these often consist of long successions of 
silts, which alternating layers of shells and of vegeta- 
ble matter proved to have been deposited at or near the 
sea-level, and the wealden and eocene formations in the 
British area show that such accumulations may exceed 
one thousand feet in thickness. In the case of deltas, 
subsidence must keep pace almost foot by foot with the 
accumulations, and be confined to the area over which 
the sediment is being deposited, for any more rapid 
subsidence would check its growth and convert it into 
an estuary. This sinking is apparently of universal 
occurrence. A similar instance of the transfer of 
weight from larger areas and its precipitation on a very 
circumscribed area is seen in coral atolls and reefs. 



GEONOMY. 83 

The explanation of their formation given by Darwin 
requires a gradual subsidence keeping pace with their 
growth, which takes place within twenty fathoms of the 
surface only. This theory, simple and admirable as it 
is, accounting satisfactorily for all the observed phe- 
nomena of coral growth, has been contested by Mr. 
Murray, who has shown that atolls might be merely 
incrustations of volcanic peaks. But his theory seems 
improbable by contrast, for it demands two hundred 
and ninety volcanic peaks at the sea-level in the Pacific 
coral area alone, every foot of which has been com- 
pletely concealed by coral growth, though few volcanic 
craters are known so near the sea-level outside this area. 
We seem thus to have in coral growths another evidence 
of subsidence keeping pace with the increase of weight, 
sometimes, as soundings prove, to a depth of one thou- 
sand feet or more. The replacement of a column of 
sea water one hundred fathoms in depth by a column of 
limestone, would increase the pressure per fathom from 
six hundred and nineteen and one-half tons to four- 
teen hundred and eighty-seven tons, so that it is easy to 
realize how vast must be the increased pressure on such 
an area as that occupied by the great reef of Australia, 
twelve hundred and fifty miles long and ten to ninety 
miles broad. The sands, gravels, and clays, with marine 
shells and erratic boulders, prove that a great submer- 
gence took place during the glacial period, while Europe 
was under an ice-sheet six thousand feet thick in Nor- 
way, and diminishing to fifteen hundred in Central 
Germany. The extent of the submergence has been 



84 GEONOMY. 

perhaps understated at six hundred feet in Scandinavia, 
and was at least thirteen hundred and fifty feet in Wales. 
A corresponding re-elevation accompanied the disappear- 
ance of the ice. It has often been supposed that the 
sinking of the west coa^t of Greenland is similarly due 
to its ice-cap." 

Extract from the Cydopsedia JBritannica. 
"The bed of the ocean supported on a yielding 
substratum may be depressed, without a corresponding 
depression of its surface, by the simple laying on of 
material, whether abraded from the land or chemically 
abstracted from the sea itself. The matter is in process 
of abrasion and transportation from the land into the 
ocean at every instant and along every coast line. We 
know too that all existing strata, however enormous 
the thickness, have been formed at the bottom of the 
sea, and it is therefore no hypothesis, but a perfectly 
legitimate assumption, that the same process is still in 
progress, no matter how slowly, from this cause, at least 
in the vicinity of coast lines ; and when we look at the 
vast amount of exuviae which constitutes so large a 
portion of the secondary and tertiary beds, — the secre- 
tions of moUusca, infusoria, and zoophites, — and bearing 
in mind the large proportion of continental substance 
which has been so formed, look at the evidence afforded 
by deep-sea soundings and by coral formations, that the 
same process is still going forward in open sea far out 
of the reach of coast washings and river deposits, we 
shall at once perceive that any amount of pressure on 



GEONOMY. 85 

the one hand and relief on the other, which the geolo- 
gist (or geonomer ?) can possibly require to work out his 
problem, and any law of distribution of that relief and 
that pressure is available without calling in the aid of 
unknown causes."* 



* " Dr. Carpenter computes the progeny of a pair of aphides, if 
allowed to accumulate, at the end of one year at a trillion. Grant- 
ing the reproduction of marine animalcules to be a thousand times 
less rapid than that of the aphides, granting that each of them 
during its lifetime secretes only a ten-millionth part of a cubic 
inch of indestructible calcareous matter, we should find accumu- 
lated in less than a quarter of a century a globe whose diameter 
would exceed the distance travelled by light since four thousand 
years before Christ." — Cycl. Brit. 



86 GEONOMY. 



SECTION XL 

THE NOETHERN GLACIAL EPOCH. 

There is no part of dynamical geology for which the 
experts in that science deserve as much credit as for 
their persevering researches relating to the Glacial Epoch. 
The results of their labors may be briefly stated as 
follows : 

At the close of the tertiary age,* and about the time 
when it is supposed that man was making his first ap- 
pearance upon the terrestrial stage, the dry lands near the 
Arctic Sea had risen not less than a thousand feet higher 
than they are now; and at the same time the climate 
became excessively cold, even in the temperate zone. 
The snow accumulated until it was several thousand 
feet high, and, in the form of glaciers, advanced from 
the north, and from every high mountain, slowly over 
half of Europe and North America. All vegetable and 
animal life was extinguished or driven south, excepting 

* " In tte Glacial Epoch there was an upward movement in high 
northern latitudes one thousand to two thousand feet, and a 
change to a colder climate ; in the Champlain Epoch there was a 
downward movement five hundred to one thousand feet below the 
present level and a moderation of climate; in the Terrace Epoch 
there was a gradual rising to the present condition." — Dana. 



GEONOMY. 87 

such as was adapted to an Arctic climate. How long this 
condition continued is unknown, but it was probably 
thousands of years. Then followed the drift period ; 
the lands that had risen subsided, so that they were 
several hundred feet below their present level, and the 
climate underwent a change, and became warmer even 
than it is now ; the glaciers melted, and the Arctic Sea 
vomited forth a large portion of its contents, scattering 
them upon the lands of the temperate zone. A tremen- 
dous flood rushed southward, bearing ice, gravel, and 
boulders in such immense quantities that it would seem 
that there could be little left. Then another change oc- 
curred : the lands rose again, though not to their former 
height, but only to their present positions. 

The evidence in favor of the facts just stated is of 
such a nature as to leave no doubt in the minds of geolo- 
gists of its perfect accuracy. If any of our readers wish 
for more knowledge of details on this, or indeed of any 
part of American geology, we would refer them to that 
masterly work of Prof. J. D. Dana, — the " Manual of 
Geology." 

Various hypotheses have been proposed to account for 
these wonderful occurrences, some of which seem to be 
in a high degree visionary, and all have one serious 
defect, — they do not give any reason for the great ele- 
vation of the northern lands ; yet this is the most im- 
portant fact to be explained. Neither the cooling of the 
globe, the passage of the solar system through an in- 
tensely cold region of space, the change of the axis of 
the earth, the change of its centre of gravity, nor the 



88 GEONOMY. 

variations of its orbit will reasonably account for tlie 
rising and sinking and re-elevation of the circumpolar 
lands, and the corresponding changes of climate; still 
less do these ingenious hypotheses account for the more 
extreme changes in the southern hemisphere. Prof. 
Le Conte, after discussing the subject, exclaims, " This is 
confessedly the most difficult question in geology." 
Geonomy furnishes the long desired key to the problem. 
The Glacial Epoch was the necessary result of the 
operation of the elliptical currents. They were limited 
in their range to the zone of the globe between the fifth 
parallel and the forty-fifth, which is only half-way to 
the pole. There was therefore a space of forty-five 
degrees width between each ellipse and the pole. If we 
assume the edge of the ocean basin to be ten degrees 
nearer the pole than the northern side of the ellipse, 
there are yet thirty -five degrees between the edge of the 
basin and the pole. The sinking of all three of the 
northern basins, and the elevation of their northern 
edges above the surface of the ocean, would entirely 
land-lock the circumpolar sea, cut off its communications 
with the warm oceans south of it, and prevent the escape 
of its chilled waters. Under these circumstances, what 
would happen ? The clouds from the south would not 
be excluded; they would rush poleward, loaded with 
vapors, which would fall in the form of snow in vast 
quantities. That which fell in winter would not half 
of it be melted in summer; it would therefore accunni- 
late more and more ; the heaps would rise higher and 
higher, until glaciers, several thousand feet thick, would 



GEONOMY. 89 

move southward, and increase the width of the frigid 
zone by adding to it half of the north temperate zone, 
covering its hills with moving glaciers. In a word, there 
would be a Glacial Epoch. At length the weight of this 
accumulated mass of compact snow and ice would cause 
the crust to sink, — then would follow the " Drift Epoch :" 
the barriers would give way, the imprisoned arctic 
waters would rush forth, the snow and ice would melt 
and increase the flood, the high northern lands and 
mountains would be torn and abraded, and their ma- 
terials swept southward over the temperate zone. Then 
the northern lands, being thus relieved of their burdens, 
would rise again, though not to their former height, for 
they would be loaded with the materials of the drift. 
There are several reasons why the high northern lands 
would in. the earlier ages become more elevated than 
those in the tropics: 1. In the tropics the elliptical 
currents flow quite to the equator, and by depositing 
sediment prevent lands from rising there ; whereas those 
currents do not flow within forty-five degrees of the pole's. 
2. There are three sinking ocean basins that combine to 
force lava under the circumpolar crust ; and as the me- 
ridian lines come to a point at the pole, the space is nar- 
rower east and west. 3. In all other places the sinking 
ocean basins have other sinking basins that antagonize 
them, but here there is no special opposition. 

Although the Glacial Epoch did not commence until 
the close of the tertiary age, the elevation of the high 
northern lands had been in progress during all the pre- 
vious geological ages. Indeed, notwithstanding the 

8* 



90 ' GEONOMY. 

check that this upward progress received in the Glacial 
and Drift Epochs, it is a question whether the same 
causes are not "now in operation/' and tending to a 
repetition of the same terrible effects. 

Originally there were three channels through w^hich 
the three great oceans supplied warm water to the 
Arctic Sea, — one was through Behring's Strait,* which 
w^as then very wide and deep ; a second was through 
Siberia from the Arabian Sea; a third was through the 
present Iceland Sea. It was the closing of these chan- 
nels by the upheaval of their beds that produced the 
Glacial Epoch. The bursting of the barriers let loose 
the imprisoned Arctic waters, and the channels thus 
made have since" remained open. Let them be again 
closed, and, of course, the same eifects would follow. 
Are there any indications that the high northern lands 
are again rising ? 

Reclus says, " We must not lose sight of the fact that 
the upheaval of the north of Scandinavia is not an iso- 
lated event, and that other countries of the north of 
Europe and Asia all appear to be actuated by a simi- 
lar movement of ascension. Spitzbergen is gradually 
emerging ; the northern coast of Russia and Siberia are 
likewise rising. It is very probable that the upheaval 



* " Narrow and shallow as Behring's Strait is, — thirty miles its 
narrowest and twenty-five fathoms its. deepest part, — it allows a 
portion of the circulating water from a warm region to find its 
way into the polar basin, aiding thereby to prevent, in all prob- 
ability, a continual accretion of ice, which else might rise to a 
mountainous height." — CyclopcBdia Bi-itannica. 



GEONOMY. 91 

is prolonged over a great portion of North America. 
The cliffs of Scotland present phenomena similar to 
those of Scandinavia. 

Dr. Southhall states, that "in the seas about Nova 
Zembla the sea-bottom has risen one hundred and ten 
feet in three hundred years. The rise of land in Norway 
since the Glacial Epoch is still more remarkable." 

Mr. Hau worth, in the report of the British Associa- 
tion, says, " The bed of the Arctic Sea is rapidly rising 
and gaining on the sea along the whole coast line." 

Again, he says, " We must seek for the cause of the 
Siberian change of climate in the draining and eleva- 
tion of the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, which once 
extended from the Euxine to the Kingan Mountains." 

The analogies of the three pairs of continents are 
made very striking if on a common map of the world 
we restore the North Indian Ocean ; but they become 
still more so if we restore to Europe the territory which 
rightfully and naturally belongs to her on the north- 
west. If Alaska and the land as far west as Beh ring's 
Strait belongs to North America, then by analogy 
Iceland and Greenland belong to Europe. 

Reclus remarks, that " geologists have established 
the fact of the former existence of land joining England 
and Ireland, Ireland and Spain, and even Europe and 
America." 

The theory seems to.be by no means unreasonable tliat 
during the Glacial and Drift Epochs the Arctic Sea, in 
bursting out of its bounds, swept away the lands that 
formerly connected the two continents. 



92 GEONOMY. 



SECTION XII. 

THE SOUTHERN GLACIAL, EPOCH. 

The geological evidence that there was a Glacial 
Epoch in the southern hemisphere is of an uncertain 
character, and the whole of the south circumpolar 
region is a terra incognita. But geonomy indicates, in 
the most positive and decisive manner, not only that 
there was a south Glacial Epoch, but that it was much 
more terrible, extensive, and disastrous than the one 
which occurred at the north. 

One of the most remarkable facts in geography is 
that the greater part of the southern hemisphere is cov- 
ered with water, while much the greater part of the dry 
land in the world is in the northern hemisphere. No 
one seems to have had the curiosity to inquire v^hy this 
is so. We have been contented with the fact, and as- 
sumed that it was always thus ; but geonomy points to 
a different conclusion. If we look at the ideal map, we 
see that the original plan, so to speak, was to have just 
the same quantity and the same forms of land and of 
oceans in one hemisphere as in the other. 

The map also indicates the forms, the number, and 
the positions of the continents which would now exist 
if the elevations had been equal, and if the ideal plan 



GEONOMY. 93 

had not been interfered with by any extraneous causes. 
Our theory logically compels us to assume that, in the 
beginning, the continents arose, or began to rise, in ac- 
cordance with this ideal; and that we must now en- 
deavor to discover, by the best evidence we can obtain, 
the causes of the departures of the present actual map 
of the world from the standard or ideal map. Before 
the land rose high enough to produce a Glacial Epoch 
there is no known reason why the continents should not 
have risen equally, or why there should not be as much 
land in the southern hemisphere as in the northern. But 
when the Glacial Epoch arrived, it introduced a true 
and sufficient cause for almost any degree of disturbance 
and derangement. 

Although geology does not enable us to give a de- 
tailed history of the Glacial Epoch in the south Polar 
region, it combines with the elliptical theory to show 
indirectly what, in all probability, was the course of 
events in the south by its analogies to those in the north. 
In the north there was a period of elevation, followed 
by a period of depression, and then succeeded a period 
of re-elevation. This is what we learn from geology. 
From geonomy we learn that there were three south- 
ern continents analogous to North America, and that 
they projected from the Antarctic Circle, just as North 
America does from the Arctic. The regular and normal 
sinking of the ocean basins, and the rising of the lands, 
would cause the exclusion of the warm currents, and 
produce a Glacial Epoch with all its attendants and 
consequences. 



94 GEONOMY. 

In the north, after the drift period, the land that had 
been depressed rose again, but in the south it seems that 
it still remains in its depressed condition ; in other words, 
the re-elevating, or " terrace" period, has not yet begun 
in the south. 

What knowledge we now possess of this southern 
region is fragmental ; but geonomy points out a new 
method of investigation, which, in the hands of future 
explorers, will, we hope, lead to more satisfactory re- 
sults. At present we are obliged to feel our way with 
what means we have. 

When we compare the actual map of the world with 
the ideal, we perceive that the pointed form of South 
Africa, and also of South America, is abnormal. Those 
southern points are evidently the remains of broad con- 
tinents that were wrecked during the Glacial and Drift 
Epoch. The map indicates that the force which acted 
against the eastern sides of the southern points came 
from the southeast. This is the very course — north- 
west — which a flood or a current would take if it came 
from the Antarctic coast. 

Australia and the islands around it seem to be the 
shattered and scattered fragments of a continent that 
was once of unsurpassed magnitude. 

It has been asserted by several authors that the plan 
of the continents and oceans was laid out, and their posi- 
tions and forms determined, before the continents began 
to rise. But this is only true of the geononiic or ellip- 
tical plan. It is not true that the original plan was to 
have two and a half pairs of oceans, — to have the North 



GEONOMY. 95 

Indian basin raised above the sea and added to the con- 
tinents, nor to have the North Atlantic so narrow and 
the Pacific so much wider. 

It is a question not easily answered whether the 
North Indian basin would have been elevated and 
ruined if there had been no south Glacial Epoch. 

We may safely assume that the Glacial Epoch re- 
sulted from the land-locking of the circumpolar seaS) 
and that the "d7'ift" and flood was produced by the 
bursting of the barriers around those seas. It is prob- 
able that the principal bursting occurred on one side of 
the pole, and not equally all around it. In the north it 
was through the Atlantic that the flood was the most 
violent, for it is between America and Europe that the 
channels to the Arctic exist, which were doubtless made 
during the drift by the passage of the flood. In the south 
the condition of the three continents indicates that the 
barrier burst near Australia and the flood rushed north- 
west against the east of Africa. This conjecture is sus- 
tained by the fact that the southern point of Africa is 
now less extended southward than is South America or 
Australia, and also by the fact that the North Indian is 
so deep and so destitute of islands. It is opposite this 
ocean that the North Indian basin is most elevated ; 
and if we assume that the elevation was caused by the 
sinking of the South Indian, we may also assume that 
it had received the most sediment from the southern 
drift. 

Independent of geonomy, the observations of Darwin, 
and more especially those of Prof. Dana, who made a 



96 GEONOMY. 

personal examination of the southern islands, leave us 
in no doubt that a continent, larger than America, is 
now gradually sinking, and has been for many cen- 
turies. Long I'anges of islands are there, which we 
have reason to believe are the tops of mountains. Ac- 
cording to our theory, mountain ranges are never created 
beneath the sea at a distance from any shore. These 
mountains, therefore, formerly existed on the border of 
a continent that has disappeared. 

We must not extend our speculations on this interest- 
ing subject beyond the jurisdiction of the facts, but we 
cannot help allowing our imagination to carry us back 
to the time when several continents existed in the midst 
of the southern oceans, and to conjecture concerning the 
character and the fate of their inhabitants. Did our 
white race originate there, and during the Glacial Epoch 
emigrate to Asia ? Who knows ? 



GEONOMY. 07 



SECTION XIII. 

MOUNTAIN UPHEAVALS. 

When an area of land first rose above the sea it was 
attacked by the winds and waves, and the coarser sedi- 
ment, after being borne a short distance, was deposited 
in a line parallel with the shore. The weight of this 
sediment created local sinking basins, which, by reac- 
tion, raised, or tended to raise, parallel ridges. * There 
is a long submarine slope between almost every ocean 
shore and the precipitous edge of the continent, and it 
is on this slope that continental islands are raised. The 
island is generally curved, and is convex toward the 
ocean and concave toward the mainland, and also 
toward the local basin the sinking of which raised it. 
If the whole submarine slope is afterwards elevated 
above the sea, the island becomes a mountain and the 
basin a dry valley. 

It is a favorite theory of some writers that all moun- 



* " About the continents there is often a region of shallow 
depths which is only the submerged border of the continent. On 
the North American coast, oif New Jersey, it extends out eighty 
miles with a depth there of onlj^ six hundred feet, and from this 
line the ocean basin dips off at a steep angle " — Dana. 
E 9 



98 GEONOMY. 

tain ranges were raised on the borders of continents, in 
consequence of the " lateral pressure" of the sides of the 
sinking ocean basins; but there are many mountains in 
Europe and Asia that are so situated, and with such 
trends, that no oceanic depression could possibly have 
raised them. Besides, none of the mountain ranges 
were elevated while the area they occupy was covered 
by a deep sea ; the continent rose in the ocean between 
two and three miles without lateral pressure producing 
any mountain ranges on its borders, and then, when it 
was only covered by comparatively shallow water, the 
mountains began to rise. 

A perfect illustration of the theory we advocate is 
furnished by the elevation of the ridge called the " Ulla 
Bund, or Mound of God." A large area of the coast 
of India, covered by shallow water, suddenly sank, 
though not to a great depth, and, parallel with this 
depression, on the land a ridge about twelve feet high 
and fifty miles long was raised. 

The E,ev. W. K. Coovert states that in building a 
railroad near his residence in Pennsylvania it became 
necessary to fill up a large mud slough, and the heavy 
materials that were put in sank in such quantities as 
to produce astonishment. At length it was discovered 
that at a considerable distance a mound had risen in the 
bed of a stream sufficient to turn it out of its course. 
In this instance we have illustrated on a small scale the 
process by which mountains are upheaved. 

The advocates of the lateral pressure theory find it 
necessary to state that mountains, as a general rule, are 



GEONOMY. 99 

on the borders of continents ; it would be more consist- 
ent with the facts to say that they were raised on the 
borders of seas, whether these seas were oceanic or 
inland. It may be safely laid down as a general rule, 
that while continents and plateaus were elevated in con- 
sequence of oceanic depressions^ mountains resulted 
from local and limited depressions. The curves of 
mountains and of continental islands bear strong testi- 
mony on this subject ; indeed, to a dynamical engineer, 
we should suppose that the evidence would amount to 
positive proof. He has only to look at a map which 
represents the eastern part of Asia to see that the 
. mountains there must formerly have been continental 
islands ; they are nearly all curved, and have dry basins 
on their concave sides. The Himalaya are concave 
northward toward the great basin of Thibet, the Alps 
are concave southward toward the basin of Piedmont, 
and the Carpathians toward the Hungarian basin. In 
Western America, the Rocky Mountains are concave 
westward toward the Great American Basin, and the 
Nevada and Coast Range are concave eastward toward 
the same basin. Where the shore of a continent was 
originally long and straight, the sedimentary deposits 
derived from it would naturally be in a straight line, 
and the resulting mountains also. But if the shores 
were indented and irregular, the islands would be more 
separated, and would be curved. For similar reasons, 
we observe that the mountains and islands in archipela- 
goes are curved. The Antilles, the Aleutians, and the 
East India Islands illustrate this statement. 



100 GEONOMY. 

The difference in the slopes of continents and of 
mountains indicates the difference in the extent of the 
basins, the depression of which produced them. The 
mountains have much steeper slopes than the continents, 
and, like volcanoes, indicate narrower or more precipi- 
tous depression. It is impossible to conceive any move- 
ment of the ocean basins that could have raised the Alps, 
but it is easy to conceive that they might be raised by 
a depression of the basin of Piedmont, when it was a 
part of the Adriatic Sea. 

In order to understand the origin of mountains we 
must begin by appreciating the fact that if the six ocean 
basins had sunk equally, and the continents had all 
risen equally, and all parts of each continent simul- 
taneously, there would have been no mountains except 
on the borders of continents. All the shores of the 
continents would have had long submarine slopes ; on 
these slopes sediment, derived from the shores, would 
have been deposited, the weight of which would have 
produced depressions, and these, by reaction, would 
have produced continental islands. When the slope 
afterwards rose above the sea, the islands would have 
been ranges of mountains on the borders of the conti- 
nents. By this proceeding a new shore would be pro- 
duced, and a new and parallel chain of continental 
islands, which, when this new slope was raised, would 
be a new and parallel range of mountains. We have 
here in a few words given the reason why there are so 
many ranges of mountains on the borders of continents, 
and why in many places the ranges or ridges are parallel, 



GEONOMY. 101 

those nearest the shore being the last created. We are 
also enabled to perceive that parallel ranges of upheaved 
mountains can only be created on a sloping submarine 
area, — for on a level area there could not be the requisite 
succession of parallel shores. 

From the preceding considerations, we infer that any 
mountains that are not on the borders of continents have 
resulted from some departure from the ideal, — some ir- 
regularity in the rising of the continent. To illustrate, 
suppose a continent like Australia had risen above the 
ocean on the western side, while the eastern side re- 
mained deep below, so that there would be a long slope 
downward; then if the land should slowly rise, and 
advance from west to east, there would be a succession 
of parallel mountains and valleys over the whole conti- 
nent. But it seems that both sides of Australia rose at 
nearly the same time, and there were not shores in the 
interior a long time enough to create mountains. South 
America is a triangular continent and has mountains on 
all three sides, with only low hills in the interior. North 
America is less favorably situated ; the eastern side rose 
earlier than the western. Two great interior basins were 
created : one between the Appalachians and the Rockies, 
and the other between the Rockies and the Nevada and 
Coast Ranges. These were both sinking basins that con- 
tended long, but unsuccessfully, against the upraising 
power of the great oceans. The sinking of the interior 
basins raised the Rockies and the Nevada, and the sink- 
ing of the North Pacific raised the western half of the 
continent. 

9* 



102 GEONOMY. 

Southern Africa has its principal mountains on its 
borders, and on that account it belongs in the same class 
as North and South America and Australia. All four 
of these continents approximate to the ideal ; but North- 
ern Africa, Europe, and Asia have been rendered abnor- 
mal by the uprising of the floor of the North ludian 
Ocean ; they must therefore receive an especial explana- 
tion in another place. 

There are three species of mountains : 1. Those created 
by the erosion and sweeping away of the surrounding 
land, leaving one area isolated in its original position. 
2. Upheavals, which have already been described and 
accounted for. 3. Corrugations ; some parts of the Ap- 
palachian Mountains afford perfect illustrations of this 
species of mountains. We learn from geology that the 
area now occupied by a large section of these mountains 
was at first a low and level plain, on which, for unknown 
centuries, the coal-producing plants grew in abundance. 
Then a force from the east, and doubtless from under 
the Atlantic, acted upon this level area and produced its 
present corrugated condition. 

An examination shows that the force acted very slowly, 
and that it produced its most disturbing eiFects near the 
Atlantic, making a succession of ridges with intervening 
valleys, the steeper side of the ridges being toward the 
west ; as we proceed from the Atlantic westward, the in- 
tervales or valleys between the ridges become wider and 
the ridges less and less elevated. 

Two theories have been advanced to account for these 
effects. One is that the side of the Atlantic basin, by 



GEpNOMYv 103 

lateral pressure,* crowded the continent westward with 
such force as to produce a corrugation of the strata, 
which was more pronounced the nearer it was to the 
ocean. Another is that waves of fluid lava beneath the 
ocean and the crust were forced under the continent west- 
ward. This last theory agrees with that advocated in 
these pages, which is that all the continents were raised 
in consequence of the upward pressure of waves or 
streams of lava from beneath the sinking oceans. 

A distinction is. made by geographers between low 
plains, plateaus, and mountains. Plateaus are high 
plains situated not far from the ocean. The waves of 
lava that move obliquely upward from beneath the ocean 
reach the border of the continent first, and produce their 
most elevating effects there ; they then turn and move 
more nearly horizontally toward the interior: accord- 
ingly, the highest plains or plateaus of a continent are 
near the ocean, and the lowest lands are distant from it. 

It is not difficult to understand. that in some instances 
the waves of lava, in raising a plateau, may have cor- 
rugated the strata above them. Prof. Rogers states that 
he found parallel ranges of folded strata in the Mal- 
verns and the Ural similar to those in the Appalachians. 



* Keferring to the force that raised the Appalachian Mountains, 
Prof. Dana says, " It acted at right angles to the general direction 
of the Atlantic coast, the flexures being approximately parallel 
to the coast line. . . . Being greatest on the ocean side (of the 
continent) and fading out toward the interior. The force was slow 
in action and long continued — a few feet in a century — without 
obliterating, and scarcely obscuring, the stratification." 



104 GEONOMY. 

It may not therefore be an unreasonable hypothesis that 
the Appalachians are a peculiar species of corrugated 
plateaus. 

The theory that the continents were raised by streams 
of fluid or plastic lava, forced under them from beneath 
the sinking ocean basins, is strongly confirmed, if not 
proved, by the relative heights of the lands as indicated 
by the profiles of the continents. In every one of these 
profiles we see that the high table-lands or plateaus are 
near the ocean, and the lowlands at a distance from it.* 
"We are thus told, in language plainer than words, that 
the liquid matter from beneath the oceans was forced 
under the continents, and that as the distance from the 
ocean increased the force and the quantity of the matter 
decreased. The highest and most extensive plateau in 
the world is that in Southern Asia, opposite the Indian 
Ocean. This great sinking basin combined with the 
North Pacific to raise two-thirds of Asia into a plateau. 

* " The Andes have been rising century after century at the rate 
of several feet, while the pampas (vast plains) east of them have 
been raised only a few inches." — Lyell. 



geojStomy. 105 



SECTION XIV. 

THE NORTH INDIAN AREA. 

The elliptical current that foraierly circulated in the 
North Indian was limited, as all other ellipses were, to 
the space between the equator and the forty-fifth paral- 
lel, and the ocean reached but little farther north of that 
latitude. The ellipse extended westward over the greater 
part of North Africa, and eastward as far as India and 
China. The analogies of the three pairs of continents 
have often been referred to by geographers, but they 
will be much more remarkable if, on a map of the 
world, we restore this ancient and now defunct ocean. 
The area that it formerly occupied is in every respect 
exceptional. 

1. It is the only one of the six great primitive oceans 
that has had its bed converted to dry land and its ellip- 
tical current excluded. 

2. It contains much the largest inland salt seas in the 
world. The Mediterranean, the Euxine, the Caspian, 
and the Aral, a short time ago, were all united, and 
constituted a long, narrow, east and west sea, the remains 
of an ocean once larger than the North Atlantic. 

3. Judging by analogy to the other oceans, the ellip- 



106 GEONOMY. 

tical current of the North Indian flowed westward, near 
and parallel to the equator, and, turning northwest, 
it continued to the western extremity of North Africa 
(which was then a gulf similar to the Gulf of Mexico) ; 
it then turned northeast through the Mediterranean 
and Caspian, then south to the Bay of Bengal, thus 
completing its circuit. Being analogous to the other 
ellij)ses, it doubtless sent an offset or warm branch 
northeast through Siberia to the Arctic Sea. The 
Arabian Sea, which was then a part of the North In- 
dian, is now one of the warmest maritime places in the 
world ; not long since it supplied warmth to the current 
that flowed through the vast and tlien salubrious Sibe- 
rian plains, where hordes of elephants and other large 
animals found a genial climate and plenty of food. 
The elevations of the land, by excluding the warm cur- 
rent, proved fatal to the elephants, whose ivory remains 
still testify to their former existence and their great 
numbers. 

4. The North Indian area contains the most exten- 
sive tertiary formations* in the world. These testify 

* " The occurrence of Numelitic limestone in the Himalaya 
Mountains, at the height of sixteen thousand feet above the sea, 
shows that this great range has been lifted above the sea sixteen 
thousand feet since the Eocene Seas covered Thibet and Central 
Asia. ' ' — Southhall. 

"The tertiary extends from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and 
including nearly the whole of Belgium, the Netherlands, Den- 
mark, Hanover, Prussia, Poland, great part of Austria, the south 
provinces of European Russia down to the Black Sea, the whole 
of the Caucasian district between the Sea of Azof and the Caspian, 



GEONOMY. 107 

tliat but a sliort time ago, geologically speaking, it was 
covered by an ocean, while many of the surrounding 
places were dry land. 

5. This area contains the highest and most extensive 
plateaus in the world. Those plateaus were evidently 
raised by the lava forced under them from beneath the 
sinking South Indian Ocean. 

6. It contains the highest and most numerous moun- 
tains, in proportion to its extent, of any place in the world. 

7. It contains the lowest dry lauds in the world : the 
Sahara, the vicinity of the Caspian and of the Dead Sea, 
are below the level of the ocean. 

8. It contains the only mountains of importance that 
trend east and west. The Scandinavians and the Urals 
that trend north and south were not within the bounds 
of the North Indian ellipse, neither were the mountains 
in the extreme east of Asia ; but the Atlas, the Alps, 
the Caucasus, the Carpathians, Thian-Shan, Kuenlun, 

nearly the wliole of Western Tartary, nearly the whole of Siberia, 
the great desert of Africa, as well as the bulk of Arabia, Persia, 
and Upper India, the deserts of Shamo and Gobi." All these 
countries are tertiary. — Ency. Brit. 

"Between the Himalaya and the Kuenlun the j^lfiteau of 
Thibet is an oval expanse about five hundred arid fifty geograph- 
ical miles across. It is the most elevated area of level ground on 
the globe. It forms the southernmost of the three great table- 
lauds of Central Asia. 

" Gobi, like Shamo, means a sandy desert. ' Gobi is a dry sea, 
suggestive,' as Forsyth says, ' not only of its present appearance, 
but also of its former history. As a sea, Gobi must have been 
comparable to the Mediterranean, and the ancient coast line can 
be pretty clearly recognized." — Ency. Brit. 



108 GEONOMY. 

Hindoo Kosh, and Himalaya are within those bounds. 
Geographers have often remarked the great difference 
between North and South Africa, but none of them 
have perceived the reason of it. Prof. Guyot, with his 
usual sagacity, observed that Northern Africa appeared 
to belong more to Europe than to South Africa; and 
Prof. Dana has pointed to the fact that Northern Africa, 
though occupied by dry land, is analogous to the Gulf 
of Mexico,* which is covered by water. The truth is, 
that it was formerly a gulf like that of Mexico, and 
had an analogous Gulf Stream circulating within it, the 
western extremity of Africa at that time being dry land, 
and analogous to the present isthmus of Central America. 
In order to understand the natural history of the 
North Indian area, we must conceive of it as at first 
an ocean, like the North Atlantic and the North Pa- 
cific, with a similar current to the Gulf Stream, flowing 
in it — with the continent of Europe, partly emerged, 
on its western side, Asia struggling upward from the 
sea on the east, and South Africa, mostly dry land, on 
the south. We must next conceive this great basin as 
being gradually undermined and rendered less deep by 
the upward pressure of lava forced under it from be- 
neath the North Pacific, the South Indian, and the 
South Atlantic, until, in the tertiary age, it was trans- 
formed into a vast archipelago, — a shallow sea, studded 
with islands and peninsulas, and surrounded by shores 



* " The western expansion of Africa corresponds to tlie indenta- 
tion of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico." — Dana. 



GEONOMY. 109 

that were advancing in all directions toward its centres 
and thus contracting its area. Next we must conceive of 
its elliptical current, — its " Gulf Stream/' — after many 
a struggle and change of its course, entirely excluded. 
What then remained of this doomed ocean was a long, 
narrow, Mediterranean Sea, that extended eastward from 
the western extremity of Europe and North Africa to 
the eastern parts of China. It was the east and west 
shores of this sea that gave l)irth to the east and west 
mountains of Asia, Europe, and North Africa during 
the tertiary age. If the Indian Ocean had maintained 
its original condition, there would have been no east 
and west ranges of mountains in Asia nor in Europe. 
Our knowledge of the geology of the Old World is very 
imperfect, but it is certain that the Scandinavians, the 
Urals, and the Altai were in existence when the Hima- 
laya and the Alps and all the other east and west moun- 
tains were yet covered by the ocean. 

The ground plan of Asia and Europe was laid out, 
— the positions of its mountains and valleys arranged, 
while it was yet an archipelago. The basins of Thibet 
and Shamo and Gobi, of Hungary and Piedmont and 
Switzerland, the plains of Arabia and Siberia and Sa- 
hara, were all covered by a tertiary sea when the present 
mountains were low islands amid those seas, or just be- 
ginning to emerge from them. The sinking of the local 
basins raised the mountains ; but it was the sinking of 
the great ocean basins that raised the whole archipelago, 
and transformed its basins into dry valleys. 

Although the mountains were first raised by the de- 
10 



110 GEONOMY. 

pression of local basins, it is reasonable to suppose that 
the force that elevated the whole archipelago would act 
specially and raise the mountains more than they would 
the more heavily-loaded basins. This inference is sus- 
tained by some observations lately made by geologists. 
They have found evidence that in several instances the 
tops of mountains have been raised, while their lower 
parts have remained undisturbed. It is also sustained 
by the fact that the pendulum indicates more thick and 
dense masses beneath the surface of the earth in valleys 
than upon mountains. 

THE CAUSE OF EARTHQUAKES. 

When the fluid lava is forced up under the continents 
from beneath sinking basins, they produce movements 
of the surface. When the movements are perceptible 
we denominate them earthquakes. Linnseus was led to 
suspect that the north part of Sweden was rising. He 
therefore fixed several marks by which future observers 
could determine with certainty how much the continent 
rose in a given time. After a hundred years had passed. 
Sir Charles Lyell found that the land had risen three 
feet, — yet the inhabitants had not observed any move- 
ments. Sometimes the upheavals are sudden and vio- 
lent, and the consequences terrible. The probability is 
that the sinking of the great and general oceans' beds 
raise the continents slowly and imperceptibly, and that 
the more limited and local basins, which receive an abun- 
dance of sediment from the neighboring shores, pro- 
duce more rapid and dangerous upheavals. Our 



GEOJSrOMY. Ill 

theory is that all elevations of continents and moun- 
tainS; and all earthquakes and volcanoes, have one 
general cause, which under different circumstances pro- 
duces various effects. If the area of depression is very 
large, we can conceive that the elevation would be broad 
and continental, and the slopes gradual ; but if the de- 
pression is narrow and deep, the elevation would be 
narrow and the slopes steep, as in the case of volcanoes 
and some mountains. In accordance with this theory 
we know that while volcanoes burst forth suddenly and 
upheave a narrow area of land in the form of a cone, 
the continents have been millions of years rising from 
their original places at the bottom of the ocean. The 
results of the explorations and dredgings made at the 
bottom of the Atlantic prove that in the middle of the 
ocean the deposits of sediment are very light, while 
near the continents they are abundant. The smallness 
of the quantities of sediment deposited in the oceanic 
centres may, at first, seem to militate against the idea 
of the upheaval of continents by its weight, but in 
reality this agrees with the testimony of geology in 
regard to the long, long time, the almost eternity that 
has elapsed since the beginning of the creation of the 
continents. The much more rapid rise of mountains 
confirms the conclusion that they owe their elevation to 
the more local and abundant deposits of sediment near 
the shores. By similar reasoning we are led to the con- 
elusion that the most destructive earthquakes result 
from comparatively narrow areas of depression, and not 
from the slow subsidence of the great ocean basins. 



112 GEOJSrOMY. 



SECTION XY. 



CONCLUDING EEVIEW. 



In reviewing our treatise, let us consider some of the 
important questions that can be answered by geonomy, 
and not without it, and in this manner estimate the 
value of the new system. 

1. Why are there three pairs of continents? 

2. Why are they so analogous to each other ? 

3. Why are there only two and a half pairs of 
oceans ? 

4. Why are the analogies of the continents all in- 
cluded in the zone between the equator and the forty- 
fifth parallel? 

5. Why are the present elliptical currents all included 
in the same zone ? 

6. Why are the trends of so many of the shores 
loxodromic ? 

7. Why are the southern oceans and continents placed 
about fifty degrees of longitude east of the northern ? 

8. Why are some of the mountain ranges east and 
west? 

9. Why are so many mountains and continental 
islands concave toward the small local basins, and 
convex toward the great oceans ? 



GEONOMY. 113 

10. "Why are South America and South Africa pointed 
at their southern extremities, and why are the eastern 
sides also pointed toward the east ? 

11. Why is there so much land in the northern hemi- 
sphere, and so much ocean in the southern ? 

12. What is the cause of the counter-currents ? 

13. Why does the ocean current divide in the Atlan- 
tic, — one branch flowing due east near Newfoundland, 
and the other branch northeast to the Arctic ? 

14. What produced the Glacial Epoch ? 

15. Why is the position of Northwestern Africa so 
analogous to that of the Gulf of Mexico ? 

16. Why is there no land between the oceans near 
the equator ? 

The critical reader will perceive, after perusing the 
preceding pages, that if it is admitted that one of the 
oceanic ellipses existed when there was no land, the 
whole system of geonomy, with all its details, neces- 
sarily follows ; for, — 

1. There must a sufficient number have existed to 
give circulation to the whole ocean, and the same num- 
ber were required in one hemisphere as in the other ; 
accordingly, in studying the map, we find that there 
were three of them in each hemisphere. 

2. Each ellipse must, from its very nature, have con- 
tinually accumulated floating and sedimentary material 
in its central parts, which, however slowly, by its weight, 
would in time produce a sinking basin, or fill the ocean 
full; accordingly, we find that three pairs of ocean 
basins were actually created. 

10* 



114 GEONOMY. 

3. Three pairs of such basins could not have sunk 
without forcing the subjacent fluid or plastic matter into 
the inter-oceanic spaces, and elevating them, and thus 
giving birth to three pairs of analogous continents; 
accordingly, we find that three pairs were elevated. 

4. If the three southern ellipses were, by any cause, 
placed east of the three northern, the continents would 
be equally unsymmetric, and the tropical parts distorted 
and loxodromic ; accordingly, we find such to be the 
case. 

5. The sinking of the three pairs of basins would 
necessarily land-lock the circumpolar seas and produce 
their glaciation ; accordingly, we have abundant evi- 
dence that there was a Glacial Epoch at the north and 
another at the south, though they were probably not 
simultaneous. 

6. The circumpolar Glacial and Drift eruptions would 
inevitably tend to deface and denude the lands in the 
frigid zone and its neighborhood ; accordingly, we find 
the ideal map in those regions greatly deranged. In the 
north a large area of Europe, and in the south large 
portions of South America, South Africa, and Australia, 
are suppressed. 

7. The tendency of an elliptical whirl of the water in 
an ocean basin is to convey the sediment into the central 
part to produce the greatest depression there, and, by 
raising the edges of the basin nearer and nearer to the 
centre, to narrow the basin, and extend the interoceanic 
continents ; accordingly, every geologist knows that, as 
a general rule, the continents have, from the beginning. 



GEONOMY. 115 

extended themselves at the expense of the oceanic areas. 
It is, therefore, not true that the ocean basins have bj 
lateral pressure pushed the continents back and made 
them narrower. 

8. The fluid or plastic matter forced obliquely up- 
ward under a continent would naturally raise the border 
of the continent more than it would the interior ; ac- 
cordingly, we find all the plateaus near the borders, and 
the lowest lands far in the interior. 

9. The sediment, before there was any dry land, must 
have been chiefly organic and chemical or meteoric, and 
consequently it accumulated slowly ; but when the land 
arose above the sea, and was subjected to the action of 
the winds, the waves, and frosts, the sediment became 
abundant, particularly in the vicinity of the shores and 
on the long submarine slopes ; accordingly, the earliest 
geological ages were of great length, and the later com- 
paratively short; and, besides, the mountains, which 
were all raised in consequence of the sinking of local 
basins near shores, rose much more rapidly than conti- 
nents. 

10. Local basins, being small, would naturally have 
shorter curves than larger basins ; accordingly, we find 
that many mountains and continental islands, and those 
in archipelagoes, are generally curved, and are concave 
toward the small basin. 

If a philosophic angel, with a knowledge of the prin- 
ciples of geonomy, could have been seated on some dis- 
tant world, and have seen our globe when the ocean first 
covered it, and " the Spirit of God moved upon the face 



116 GEONOMY. 

of the waters/' in elliptical paths, he could, by mere de- 
ductive reasoning, have predicted all the most important 
events and changes that have since occurred in the phys- 
ical history of the earth. He could have foreseen that 
the sediment would accumulate in the centres of the 
ellipses and produce three pairs of sinking basins, and 
raise three pairs of analogous continents, and that, con- 
sequently, the circumpolar seas would be land-locked and 
glaciated, and then burst forth and produce terrible floods 
of water and ice, gravel and boulders. 

He would have foreseen that the eastern positions of 
the southern ellipses would distort the central parts of 
the continents ; that the -^ bottom of one of the basins 
would be liable to be elevated above the sea, and pro- 
duce exceptional east and west shores and mountains; 
and that nearly all the other mountains and plateaus 
would be raised near the borders of continents. 

The present writer had not the advantage enjoyed by 
the supposed angel. He was under the necessity of 
reasoning by induction, from the facts and phenomena 
which the earth now presents, back to the time when the 
continents wei'e in embryo, and the oceans were " bound- 
less, endless, and sublime." The teachers of physical 
geography in our schools may now avail themselves of 
both processes of reasoning. By means of the principles 
illustrated in the foregoing pages, they can begin by 
proceeding deductively from the first to the last chapter 
in the earth's history, and then reverse the process, and 
demonstrate the truth of the principles by well-estab- 
lished facts relating to the present condition of the earth. 



